Erudite Relics of Loc Huu Ho

Found this Sunday Computer Humour on my INFP mailing list:

The Lord is my Server; I shall not crash. God makes me to reboot
in clear transmissions. God leads me to abundant bytes. God restores
my programs. God leads me in the world wide web towards righteousness.
Yea, though I walk through an internet of malware I will fear no virus,
for You are with me. Your antivirus and Your firewall, they comfort me.
You prepare a place before me in the presence of hackers. You anoint my
uploads with oil; my cup is filled to overflowing with positive downloads.
Surely, windows and macintosh shall allow me good days of life, and I will
dwell in the computer of the Lord forever, Amen.

In the world of enterprise programming, the mainstream is broad and deep. Code is written predominantly in one of a few major languages. For some shops, this means Java; for others, it’s C# or PHP. Sometimes, enterprise coders will dabble in C++ or another common language used for high-performance tasks such as game programming, all of which turn around and speak SQL to the database.

Programmers looking for work in enterprise shops would be foolish not to learn the languages that underlie this paradigm, yet a surprising number of niche languages are fast beginning to thrive in the enterprise. Look beyond the mainstays, and you’ll find several languages that are beginning to provide solutions to increasingly common problems, as well as old-guard niche languages that continue to occupy redoubts. All offer capabilities compelling enough to justify learning a new way to juggle brackets, braces, and other punctuation marks.

While the following seven niche languages offer features that can’t be found in the dominant languages, many rely on the dominant languages to exist. Some run on top of the Java Virtual Machine, essentially taking advantage of the Java team’s engineering. And when Microsoft built C#, it explicitly aimed to make the virtual machine open to other languages. That detail may help make deployment easier, but it doesn’t matter much to the programmer at creation time.

Either way, these seven languages are quickly gaining converts in the enterprise. Perhaps it’s time to start investigating their merits.

Original Source: FINALINT So Says Donnie Garvich

I recently inherited a web app from a dirty, nasty, stinking contractor that claimed to be a competent enough programmer to be left alone to get things done. Unfortunately, we took him at his word. Functionally, most of the web app seemed to work at first glance.

“What are the bumps at the end of computer cables?.”