About 20 years ago, I accidentally solved a similar problem. I created a Windows application using Visual Studio with MFC without thinking very far into the future. It turns out that I still maintain that application - and a few spinoffs of it - to this day. VS and MFC turned out to be a good choice for this system.

I've had to do some migration work every few years as newer versions of VS came out, but that's been tolerable. For example, I recently migrated from VS 2003 to VS 2010 because 2003 doesn't run correctly on Windows 7. And I recently made a transition to Unicode, which was slightly painful but tolerable - definitely the right thing to do at this point.

VS may not actually be the best answer to the question, but my experience does illustrate a few points. It worked for me because:
- The IDE had a large user base and ran on a ubiquitous platform.
- The framework, MFC, likewise has a large user base. Microsoft doesn't seem to care much about MFC anymore, but it's easy for them to maintain with each new version of VS. Basically, as long as VS, C++, and the Win32 API is around, it makes sense for them to update MFC whenever they update VS. Typically, they just add new features for new API things I don't use like the "Ribbon" interface. That's easy enough for me to ignore.
- Migrating to the new version of the system every few years makes sense. I don't do this with every version of VS, but I do it with every 2 or 3. Microsoft more-or-less forced me to do this when old versions of VS would no longer run, but it's actually been good for me overall. However, if I had somehow managed to continually use VS as it existed 20 years, the pain of migrating to a modern version today might be too great.

Please complain about as many things as possible. In my experience, people universally enjoy hearing complaints. :-)

But seriously, I literally have not had any of the problems you complain about. I don't remember the whitespace thing (which I happen to like) to have ever caused me a problem. If anything, it prevented problems compared to the common alternative.

Regarding compatibility among minor versions, Python has always been famously committed to a very high level of compatibility between minor versions, which I have always used interchangeably. (Think about it: you don't get and retain the status of being one of just a very few primary scripting languages without that.)

That said, you're right, though about "it's" [sic] slowness. So, what part of "scripting language" don't you understand...? Specifically, it really isn't possible to gain the advantages of dynamic typing without losing the advantage of speed. That's why those of us who use Python for part of our work use a compiled language for the other part of our work. (I use both C and C++ regularly.) You might as well complain that a screwdriver doesn't pound in nails very well. True enough, but a hammer really isn't that useful for turning screws, either...

I heard a similar rationale regarding a baby and its bathwater. At first, the bathwater was blamed for the unfortunate zealous disposal of the baby. But when that explanation didn't fly, the purported ugliness of the baby was offered as justification. However, after hearing both explanations, the jury remained unconvinced.

It always amazes me that so many folks reject something entirely because they don't like one aspect of it. Good luck finding a wife...

"A hacker with his computer can steal more than a hundred men with guns."

Are you sure? Sounds like yet another NSA conspiracy to me...

Good point. Maybe we should have been neutral like Switzerland in 1941 - and ever since. Just think how happy we'd all be here on our own little continent, away from all the troublemakers of the world, with only Mexico and Canada to worry about.

AFAIK, Russian hackers not succeed. Yet.

I use the excellent "Wordfence" plugin, and it tells me these things. It also locks out IPs that fail at too many logins. So hacker gets botnet. But maybe Wordfence itself is Russian hack - nyet?

Now I know why machines with Russian IP addresses so consistently try to break into my Wordpress sites. Two of three of those sites are in the formative stages and have almost no content. Russian professionals will provide, da?

I've also read "The Prince." Several times, in fact. Highly recommended reading, but not much use in the workplace for those of us who aren't trying to climb the corporate ladder. Except for the following quote, which I have seen play out repeatedly in The Big Corporation:

All of the major mistakes I've made over the years fall into the category of not playing well with others. That often occurred when I became overly committed to getting the job done. Big mistake. I eventually turned that into a simple motto: "It's more important to get along with others than to get your work done." Basically, you lose more points for being a social problem than you gain for being a technical answer. The penalty for the former can be quite severe. The reward for the latter usually is minimal.

Corny as it may sound, a simple prevention/cure for this problem is to read, follow, and live the advice in "How to Win Friends and Influence People," by Dale Carnegie. (Available for free at your local public library.) That will also help you in all other aspects of life, since the same dynamic applies throughout. Heck, even those ISIS folks also could benefit from it - especially them.

IMHO, this should be required reading for everyone entering the workforce. Since I've begun practicing those principles, every aspect of my life has improved. Oh, except that I get more annoyed at people who remain clueless on these simple - and now obvious - principles.

I had a friend who had faithfully programmed for Windows 2 for a couple of years. Windows 2 was never popular, so his fine efforts didn't see much use. At that time, the lingua franca of Windows was MS Pascal. However, when Windows 3 came out, MS abandoned Pascal as the primary programming language for Windows and switched to C.

As we now know, Windows 3 turned out to be Microsoft's first big success after DOS. So, my friend found himself sitting on a pile of Windows code that he had written in Pascal over the years that was suddenly useless. Which was ironic, given the newfound success of Windows.

I don't know if that was the first time that loyal MS developers like my friend got Micro-shafted. But it wasn't the last. Even so, switching from Pascal to C turned out to be a very good idea. No pain, no gain, I guess.

I was struck by the statement that Java "changed the art and business of programming." While that's certainly true as a general statement, it hasn't been true for me personally. I've lived my recent adult programming life with a combination of C, C++, Python, and Matlab. I haven't so far had a need for Java because one of those languages does anything I need to do better than Java.

I've studied Java (and C#) a little, and have generally been interested and see some value there. But I have never actually had an explicit need for Java, so I never stuck with it long enough to become proficient in it. In particular, mastering Java's libraries is a daunting task. So, if I can live my life without it, I wonder how much worse off the rest of the world would be if it had never been invented?

I agree: that seems to be the thing that Python does better than any other language, IMO. That also points out a fallacy of the premise in TFS: it doesn't really make sense to attribute the success or failure of a given language to any single factor. Instead, programmers evaluate each on a combination of factors, and each has strengths and weaknesses compared to others. Therefore, each language fits into different areas, and a language thrives and prospers according to how many such areas there are and how important those areas become.

IIRC, the original strength of Java was supposed to be "write once, run anywhere." I think it was the first language to feature that as the primary selling point, though others have followed. It's surprising that its primary initial selling point would now be eclipsed (tee-hee) by supposedly being "easy to read" - especially since that could be said about several other languages, depending on one's personal preferences in that regard.

Dunno. But suppose it were designed to mine only when the device is plugged in. If my phone could mine enough Bitcoin overnight, when plugged in anyway, to cover micropayments for some paywalled articles for me to read the next day, it might seem worth it - even if I was paying more for the electricity than the mined Bitcoin was actually worth.