I have been working on a system for programming some specialty hardware on customer premises for a while, and most of it was written in a pseudo-language implemented by another backend programmer. Think BASIC-like implements in a YAML file, with arbitrary python inserts here and there.
Despite the code being not very visually attractive (long corridors of imperative statements reading and writing from SMBus addresses), I was always surprised how easy it was to maintain the code, and how quickly I could get back "in the zone" after not working on it for months.
There is something painfully trivial about old clunky languages that makes them somewhat easier to get back into. The cost in abstraction capabilities is obvious though. The only reason I can afford to write concise, linear, imperative code for this project is its narrow, specialized scope that most of modern programs cannot afford to limit themselves to anymore.
Despite the code being not very visually attractive (long corridors of imperative statements reading and writing from SMBus addresses), I was always surprised how easy it was to maintain the code, and how quickly I could get back "in the zone" after not working on it for months.
There is something painfully trivial about old clunky languages that makes them somewhat easier to get back into. The cost in abstraction capabilities is obvious though. The only reason I can afford to write concise, linear, imperative code for this project is its narrow, specialized scope that most of modern programs cannot afford to limit themselves to anymore.