Re: Which language would be most helpful?

Well, if you are going to pick a language just to benefit your Perl learning, and you just have the three mentioned languages to choose from, pick C++. (Better choices would be C, sh, AWK and Python).

However, if I were presented with those languages, and I had to pick one, I'd pick Cobol. Why? Because it isn't used as much as C++ or VB. Those languages you can learn for yourself, there are lots of books about them, gcc compiles C++, VB comes with the most popular OS. But it's harder to learn find resources to learn Cobol.

Furthermore, everyone quickly says that Cobol is rubbish. But it's good to know your heritage. Cobol was among the first high level programming languages, created in a time even assemblers weren't common place. Grace Hopper was one of the major designers/developers of Cobol. We wouldn't have languages like C, Perl or Java if it wasn't for those pioneer languages like Cobol. Even if it doesn't satisfy todays standards.

Abigail

Comment on Re: Which language would be most helpful?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Which language would be most helpful? by adrianh (Chancellor) on Feb 02, 2003 at 18:24 UTC
There's also the fact that there are still a lot of COBOL systems out there. Businesses tend not to like rewriting their codebase from scratch in another language, so there is a surprising amount of COBOL work out there. I've also heard from a couple of people that it's harder to recruit good COBOL coders these days (for obvious reasons) so it may start paying more $$$ too.	[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Which language would be most helpful? by pvck (Novice) on Feb 02, 2003 at 19:48 UTC
On the flip side of this, I once had a man lurking in front of a Wallgreens say to me "I'm a COBOL programmer. Got any change?" ;> I would also like to note just as an additional data point that our local .edu has replaced C++ with Java for the entry-level CS programming class. This irritates me, but as I am merely a newbie myself, I cannot coherently state why, just as I can add little to the original question. --pvck	[reply]
Re^4: Which language would be most helpful? by adrianh (Chancellor) on Feb 02, 2003 at 20:00 UTC
Ah - but was he a good COBOL programmer ;-) I think you'll find Java replacing C++ for teaching in a lot of place (certainly seems to be true in the UK). IMHO it's a far easier first language to learn and, possibly more importantly, teach then C++.	[reply]