Summarized as

“Computer programming is the occupation of a priesthood of trained professionals whose mastery of natural language is only matched by their mastery of Latin and Calculus.  Everyone else is a hacker not to be trusted, employed or otherwise allowed near our stacks of 9 track tapes and hex switches.”

Good in his day, the author of that piece is no longer evolving, another unpleasant truth that might hurt.

len

From: Radu Cernuta [mailto:radu.cernuta@g...]  

I don't know about FORTRAN, but I know places where they use COBOL. I thought maybe some thoughts from an essay from 1975 by prof. Edsger W. Dijkstra, "How do we tell truths that might hurt?" could be interesting for a discussion about predictions:

' FORTRAN --"the infantile disorder"--, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use. '

'The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence.'

And there is more:

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/%7Eevans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html