The 4GL's from the 80's had two problems, as I remember. First, if you wanted to customize something, make it a little snazzier than out of the box, you had to od some pretty wicked things that weren't human language like at all.
Second, they didn't perform as well as real programming languages. That may be why the 4GL's tended to be relegated to back-office work by end-users. Robert Crawford Mainframe Management United Services Automobile Association (210) 913-3822 "Moy glaz! YA ne dolzhen dobavlyat' v nego puding!" - Tolstoy Please send requests to mainframe management through our front door at go/mfmfrontdoor -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Bob Bridges Sent: Friday, January 7, 2022 3:25 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: EXTERNAL: Re: ... Re: Top 8 Reasons for using Python instead of REXX for z/OS I agree with Shmuel; we heard a lot about 4GLs back in the '80s and '90s, but I never saw one that lived up to the claims. DYL-280II, for example, was advertised as a 4GL, but it wasn't close. Don't get me wrong, as a 3GL I liked it just fine, and my company had me teach it to end users so they could fetch data from their particular databases without throwing off developers' estimated completion dates -- very successfully, I add happily. But it was no 4GL. Actually I lump 4GLs and AI into the same bucket. They're related, I think: Folks dream of getting computers to think and talk like a human, but so far it hasn't happened and I suspect it cannot happen. But then as a Christian I'm also a mystic, by which I mean that the 37 cents' worth of chemicals that one often hears about are not what we are, only what we're made of, and that the scientists' attempts to figure out what consciousness is and why it evolved is doomed to failure because they're starting with the wrong postulates. But, heck, I may be mistaken. Maybe someday a computer will pass a really decent Turing test. I'm not concerned that my profession is about to wither away, though. --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* Woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity. -Eric Hoffer */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Seymour J Metz Sent: Friday, January 7, 2022 16:09 I know of languages that have been peddled as human oriented or English like; I don't know of any that even come close. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
