Re: Request new Ruby release

[Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca>]

On 2018-05-04 18:56, Steven Penny wrote:
> sorry, did you really just invoke fortran as a serious argument? fortran is
> arguably the oldest programming language still in use, if you can even call it
> that. you can't even do HTTP with it:
> http://rosettacode.org/wiki/HTTPS#Fortran

That's what web servers are for, written in more suitable languages, but search
for fortran+fastcgi+nginx, or have a look at https://github.com/rlcarino/heeds
for a production GPL3 web based Fortran app.

> youll notice that ADA already got the axe:
> http://github.com/cygwinports/cygwin64-gcc/blob/master/cygwin64-gcc.cygport#L52

On Cygwin, but GNAT is still part of GCC 9.
ADA is heavily used in safety critical, RT, embedded avionics and ATC where the
focus is on decades long, exhaustive documentation archival, maintenance,
support, and testing of almost static libraries and tools after release,
requirements for which GNU projects are ill-suited, but in which aerospace and
gov/mil project companies and their suppliers have long experience.

Cobol has similar requirements for bread and butter enterprise and government
financial systems, with high requirements for maintainability to handle
legislative and business changes, and long term platform compatibility and support.

> this could happen to fortran as well.

I thought I'd have seen that by now, but there's too much carefully validated
(parallel) HPC (especially modelling) and scientific code, libraries, apps, and
systems used by various government agencies, institutions, and departments for
heavy or important computation in many fields, that it doesn't look like it'll
ever be allowed to die ;^>

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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