Yesterday Adam wrote a post about learning new languages, which prompts me to write a few thoughts I’ve had about the programming languages we use at the University.
As much as I like Python and Ruby, they don’t come from the “data processing” tradition and these languages aren’t really optimized for business processing. About four years ago I suggested to Software AG that they develop a new language, like Natural but with a more modern foundation, and design it to run on the Java VM and Microsoft’s CLR, with hooks to call out to routines written in the other languages available on those platforms. Software AG hasn’t done anything with my suggestion (not that I expected them to) but I sometimes wonder what it would be like if they did.
(Sometimes I toy with the idea of writing such a language myself, but then I return to sanity.)
Can you point to any widely used languages that are “optimized for business processing”? I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
So what about a dedicated library (for python or ruby) for accessing Adabas? Perhaps one that works with our security system? It MIGHT be simpler than writing a whole new language.