Does anyone in the computer field still use CoBOL?
482541
Yes, now a days cobol is very popular language for mainframe applications. Mainframe applications are mainly used in bank, Railways etc.. So dont think it is old. Most  of the online transactions are takes place with the help of mainframe.
344830
If, as I suspect, you are referring to zero generation languages; you will need to study the binary instructions and data formats for each processor that you will program for.  This is the original way that software was written.  It is hand entered in binary, octal or hexadecimal format and saved as a file.  This is ever so inefficient and time consuming.  First generation language, assembly, is far more efficient and can do everything that zero (somtimes called first) generation programming can.  Later, higher level languages were developed such as COBOL and C, C++ Java and Forth.  I recommend learning any and all you can, but there is no need trying to dive into really low level languages such as machine code or assembly first.  Learn with something such as Python, Java or even C first, then branch to as many as you want up and down the scale.  Good luck.
721988
Oh dear, NOT sap! etab and emac are leagues better.
396192
Have you tried babelfish (alta vista)
26631
Short answer, it depends what you want.\n \nThe guy who though that Prolog was the most powerful was tripping.  Logic languages like Prolog are the best for for some unusual domains, but they're actually pretty limiting - a lot of sorts of programs are a lot harder to write in Prolog than they'd be in almost anything else.\n\nI think it might be useful to have the facilities of Prolog lying around in a library, ready to use on the rare occasion that they're a good fit, but I'd never want to write most of a program in Prolog.\n\nMy favorite language is one that time forgot, smalltalk.  It has a number of features missing from most programming environments:\n1. You can save the state of a running program (threads and all), and restore it (sort of like putting a laptop into hibernation).\n2. You can debug and rewrite programs while they are running. You can rewrite a routine and restart it, deep inside of a calculation. Programs and data can be edited live. And data can always be saved and reused - you don't have to recreate data each time, or figure out a way to save it and initialize it each time.\n3. The entire system, gui and all, has source code available all of the time.  It has browsers that make it easy to search through the code and find things.\n4. It's just a syntax thing, but all of the parameters are named in a function call - that tends to make code easier to read.\n5. The language was designed for humans not computers - it leaves out everything that other languages put in to make programs more efficient for the computer - leaving that stuff out gets rid of a lot of clutter.  \n6. Since it has no restrictive data typing on variables you're less likely to make a decision early on that limits how you can finish a program.\n\nUnfortunately I'm not sure if I can recommend a great smalltalk system.  You can download Squeak, and it's good and has a lot of users, but it's not professional grade. Parts of it have rough edges, and it's not the fastest version of smalltalk.\n \nYou could play with the free (for noncommercial use)  version of Cincom (runs on everything) - or buy the commercial version if you have $500 to blow.\n\nOn Windows you could buy a copy of Dolphin.\n\nResearchers (now employed at Sun) showed that it's possible to write an optimizing compiler for Smalltalk that makes it as fast as other languages, but Sun canned that project and put those people on Java.\n\n...\n\nOn the other hand, if you want a language designed to force software to be reliable, (say for medical or military use) you could go to the opposite end of the spectrum and program in Ada.  The newest versions of Ada are a good language, and GNU makes a free version (GNAT).\n\nI'm mostly used to C++, but I don't think of it as a good language, just as one I'm used to.\n\nThere's a mania for strongly typed functional languages among academia these days.  I'm not the hugest fan of those.  Some of them have a few nice tricks built into them, but I'm convinced that strongly typed languages force you to "optimize too soon" and make decisions too early in your design process.
567138
So some searches on Yahoo for java, VB and oracle.\nThis should give you some information, and ideas on what they are, and how to use them.
532620
The concepts are somewhat separate; I know engineers\nwho have written Java clients which are front-ends\nto IBM mainframe back-ends.  Admittedly, I would guess\nthat most mainframe software is written in COBOL, so\nif that's what you like, I guess it will keep you away\nfrom Java.\n\nWhile I believe that IBM mainframes will be around for\na long time, I wouldn't describe it as a *growth* area.\nI won't claim to be an expert because I work in a \ncompletely different market segment (electronic design),\nbut I think there is a *lot* of maintenance work in the\nmainframe world (ie. updating the COBOL decks which\nwere written in 1975).  If that's appealing, well, I \nguess you have your option "against Java".
1101352
Yes because I used to like typing in basic (Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) into the computer from the magazines that used to have them and then get the programs running, plus I tried writing simple question and answer type programs.  I first learned it on my Commodore Vic-20 with 5K of Ram and two 3 and 1/2 inch Floppy drives with 720 K diskettes and a place to plug in cartridges to play games and no hard drive.\n\nI thought the old computers were fun for me and I learned about computers that way and the inner workings of them and how to fix computer problems through Trial and Error Method.
263776
Try searching on http://www.coj.net
743394
In some programs yes in some no.\n\nWhat program are you asking about?\n\n///
255775
For client/server work I use vb.net. For web work I use ColdFusion. They are both easy to learn and easy to use.
47414
Yes, but only with dos programs that use a gui.
150759
Sounds to me like they mean that Java will be next in line for the 'nitch' market.  Cobol really doesn't have wide accepetance in the market unless you are doing main frame work and God forbid you run a mainframe with Java as the core.\n\nIn otherwords, even though Java was a good idea..it's not catching on as fast as Sun hoped and wants, and most likly will be shoved over by the next 'great' thing in programming.
1002503
I hate the darn things. I have one in my name and it's a real pain.\n\nApplications written in SQL have a real problem with them too and usually error out if you include one.\n\n\nOther than that it's just plain lazy.
240215
i beleieve c++ and visual basic...
120606
It all depends what you are trying to accomplish.\n\nI’m 65 and began programming in the very early 1960s.  During the early years I programmed in more than a dozen different computer languages, but over time increasingly move into pure systems work and then business consulting (which I still do) and finally owning my own businesses. For me that evolution was correct, but it didn’t take long to lose my edge with programming.  If you are going to stay in programming you are best served (in my opinion) to remain as up to date as possible.\n\nThis field changes so quickly (it did even when I began) that it is difficult to stay up with it at any point.  For me working on the development of leading approaches to programming specialized applications (for me it was applications for manufacturing environments) was a good path because breaking new ground got your name around the industry.  Job offers were always available.\n\nI don’t know if such helps this day and age or not.  In my experience I used what I learned to start my own business and that was more satisfying than everything else.
803253
there has been alot of work done in A.I. in LISP, but outside of AI the language doesn't see much use. For versatility, some version of C++ would probably be the best. For ease of use, I understand that python is a pretty good choice at this point, but I don't have any personal experience with it.\n\nIf your planning on doing such a program over the web, PHP/MySQL would be a good choice, and it's free as well.