I am a programmer who has worked in C, COBOL, C#, VB, and MUMPS. One BIG drawback of the new languages is the rate of change. Programmers working in MUMPS or COBOL can spend 100% of their time programming. In the "new" world, if you are using Java or one of the .Net languages then 10%-40% of your programming budget is spent keeping up with the latest version, bug fixes, etc. If memory serves, this started with C++. Before C++ compilers pretty much always worked. Occaisionally there was a bug, but those were understood because they were rare. Today people writing the code are not sure if the compiler works or they just don't understand it.

Best Always...Malcolm