ObjC is our generation’s COBOL

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I thought Java was our generation's COBOL. For example, quoting from http://www.infoworld.com/article/2628631/development-environ... :

> "Java has evolved from a groundbreaking, revolutionary language platform to something closer to a modern-day version of Cobol."

Or http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JavaIsTheNewCobol :

> "Is Java the new Cobol? A good argument can be made that yes, it is."

One of the arguments given is '[The developers] learned ObjC moonlighting at their boring .NET job, and then you hired them. They’re now moonlighting learning Swift, and now you’re the boring ObjC job. See where this is going?'

That surely parallels the experience with Java - why isn't ObjC "our generation's" Java?

That's because COBOL is our generation's COBOL. And it'll be the next generation's too.

^^ This is want the business guys don't understand. Any business application with a solid foothold will need to be maintained for years into the future. My alma mater has an entire program dedicated to minting mainframe developers because there is and will be a need that everyone else is ignoring.

Playing with analogies, I feel like maybe Java is more our generation's Lisp, with respect to the AI boom: it hit a key enterprise "cool" factor and seemed to offer a productivity jump in some particular niches, but failing support levels from the language companies supposedly maintaining the languages (that got too bogged down into pie in the sky hardware projects or got bought out at ridiculous prices and scavenged for parts)...

The fun fact there is the snake is eating its tail in that analogy as most of the interesting stuff I've read in the last while regarding Java/JVM is Clojure, and that's a direct Lisp descendant.

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