🚀 go-pugleaf

>The fact that they still survive in the face of extreme bias by newbies
>that think C is the only "real" language is an indication of how well
>they fulfilled (and continue to fulfill) their intended function.

No that's not true.  I can't speak for Cobol but FORTRAN is a terrible
language.  It evolved before formalized compiler theory had been developed
and as a consequence it is difficult to parse, and uses an ugly syntax
which leaves the way clear for very hard to trace bugs. The reason FORTRAN
is still in use is because 1) there is an enormous of amount of FORTRAN
code already out there which is continually being maintained and modified,
and 2) engineering schools continue to insist on teaching FORTRAN to the
exclusion of all else (fortunately that's changing).  Also, I should point
out that even recent versions of FORTRAN don't support records, pointers,
or dynamic memory allocation which are all vitally useful to programmers. 
I understand the latest revision of the language does include some (all?)
of these features.  It seems that with each new version the language adds
more and more Algo/Pascal like features.  What I don't understand is, if
you want those features why not just switch to modern language (Ada?
Modula?) that supports them rather than continually kludging a bad
product. 

BTW, C is no gewel either.  It's main curse (and blessing) is it gives the
programmer such enormous power.  The problem is not many programmers are
disciplined enough to take advantage of C's powerful features and still
write good, readable, maintainable code.

C.