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From: Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com>
Subject: Re: A question for my personal knowledge.
Date: 1999/05/11
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Date: 1999-05-11T00:00:00+00:00
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Roy Grimm wrote:
> When one has dozens or hundreds of
> programmers/engineers/developers/whatever, the costs can add up
> quickly.  Not only do you have to pay for the classes but you also have
> the costs of learning the new development environment (even if your old
> environment supports the new language, it has to have new ways of
> handling some language features so it is never 100% identical).  Beyond
> that, there's the unseen costs of the true learning curve of the
> language.  Sure, you can pick up the syntax reasonably quickly but
> you'll still take a few weeks or more of using that syntax to really
> learn the language.  That is what's expensive.
> 

...And let the language wars begin!...:-)

pragma Flame (On) ;

I hear this argument all the time - "Nobody wants to switch to language
X because training/education/infrastructure/whatever is too expensive."
This ends up absurd on the face of it. Stick "Java" in where "X" appears
above. Apparently people were willing to eat the costs - large or small
or whatever they really are - in order to get the perceived benefits of
the new language. This *must* be true or we'd all still be programming
in assembler.

I think it ends up coming down to this: "I find language X interesting.
Hence, I will acquire the resources and start developing in X." versus
"I hate language Y and someone is encouraging/forcing me to adopt it.
Hence, language Y will cost too much, take too long, introduce too many
risks, make it impossible for me to get qualified staff, blah, blah,
blah." 

I hope this isn't looked at as any sort of attack. I realize lots of
people of good will and intelligence understand that there are costs
associated with switching over to a new language. I just get frustrated
with the notion that this is somehow an insurmountable barrier. It is
obviously *not* an insurmountable barrier the instant Programmer Pete or
Manager Mel decide they like a language and want to use it. It is done
*all*the*time* and apparently doesn't bankrupt a project or company or
there would *never* be any progress beyond machine code.

pragma Flame (Off) ;

Whew! Feels good to get that out of my system!

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

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