Better Software - December 2007 - (Page 10)

Code Craft Tools for OurTime by Chuck Allison Sometimes, when I can come up for air, I ponder how software development has changed over the years. I probably started before many of you, back in the day of paper tape and punch cards, even before the innovative eight-inch floppy disk. When I was doing classified work, a courier would take my card deck to a service bureau’s mainframe an hour’s drive away. I had to wait until the next morning to find out if I had any syntax errors. I quickly learned that desk-checking one’s code was not really optional. Getting a program to compile was a major milestone—a highly praised achievement that called for celebration. Recently, I perused Monster.com, finding that today’s developers require skills way beyond knowing how to compile code: Networking/Web: SOAP, HTML, DHTML, CSS, XML, JAXP, JAXB, DOM, SAX, ASP/.NET, Sockets, RPC, CORBA, RMI, DNS, LDAP, TCP/IP, NDS, Active Directory, VOIP, Ajax, Struts, WebLogic, WebSphere, Servlets, Hibernate, Flash Database: SQL, Oracle, PL/SQL, ProC, SQL Server, TSQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DB2, ADO.NET, ODBC, JDBC, MS Access Platforms: Windows, Linux, AS/400, J2EE, .NET, Solaris, HP/UX, J2ME, Windows CE Languages/Scripting: C, C++, C#, Java, PHP, Perl, Python, VB, VB.NET, COBOL, JavaScript Design: UML, Rational Rose, Design Patterns That’s a lot to just have heard of, let alone be familiar with. Software development isn’t what it used to be. Programming languages are not what they used to be, either. Consider how they’ve evolved. Here’s a much abbreviated timeline, showing the major innovations selected languages have introduced: 1954 FORTRAN (first high-level language): arrays, loops, subprograms 1958 Algol: block scope, structured programming, recursion 1959 Lisp: interpreted language, functional paradigm, garbage collection 1965 PL/I: exception handling, concurrency, pointers, 1967 Simula-67: objects and classes, inheritance, co-routines 10 www.StickyMinds.com 1968 Algol 68: user-defined structures, references, dynamic arrays 1980 Smalltalk: graphical user interfaces, object-oriented programming 1998 C++: type-safe generic (and multi-paradigm) programming These are the shoulders on which today’s languages stand. Languages for Our Time As of September 2007, the coding standards company TIOBE (see the StickyNotes for a link) rated the top twenty programming languages in order of popularity as follows: Java, C, Visual BASIC, PHP, C++, Perl, C#, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, PL/SQL, SAS, D, Delphi, ABAP, Lisp, COBOL, Lua, Ada, and FORTRAN. Three of these—PL/SQL, ABAP, and SAS—are specialpurpose languages. Visual BASIC and Delphi, while based on general-purpose languages, are specifically targeted for GUI development. What kind of languages are the other fifteen? Table 1 considers selected attributes of these languages. One language in particular crosses some interesting attribute boundaries. It compiles to native executables and is statically typed, yet it is garbage-collected—not your everyday combination. The D Programming Language The D language is mostly the handiwork of Walter Bright, developer of Zortech C++, the first native-code C++ compiler on DOS in the 1980s. Like many of us, he wondered what C++ would be like if compatibility with C were not an issue. Unlike the rest of us, he did something about it. The result is an efficient, easy-to-use language with built-in support for many of BETTER SOFTWARE DECEMBER 2007 ISTOCKPHOTO http://www.StickyMinds.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Better Software - December 2007

Better Software - December 2007 Contents Mark Your Calendar What's Happening @ StickyMinds.com Technically Speaking Code Craft Test Connection Management Chronicles Man and Machine Let Your Values be Your Guide A Story About User Stories and Test-driven Development Product Announcements The Last Word Ad Index

Better Software - December 2007

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