What is the take on getting older (possibly obsolete) languages reviewed?

Question

Specifically, I want to address languages from the era of 8-bit home computing. Such languages could include:

• 6502 Assembly

• 6800 Assembly

• 8080 Assembly

• Commodore BASIC

• etc...

These languages are specific to a processor / computer that is obsolete nowadays. There are, however, several simulators and such that can allows you to compile / run these programs. But I don't know the age range of people on this site. I my self am 17 and know them, but most people that didn't use computers at that time would not be familiar with them, and they could be a pain for some reviewers.

Should we allow reviews in these languages?

Answer 1

Of course these languages are allowed. We have users in our chat room who grew up programming on these systems, and while the assembly user base isn't as strong as others, it is large enough that you could likely get a review.

Answer 2

Absolutely! The newest cobol question was asked last April, and it's funny you bring up C64 basic just recently I was considering finding an emulator and implementing a tic-tac-toe game and putting it up for review on the main site.

[...] they could be a pain for some reviewers.

Sure. And they could be a challenge for some other adventurous reviewer that's reviewing code as a sport. After all, except for some esoteric languages, the structures are pretty much the same, and reviewing the algorithm doesn't require thorough knowledge of a language.. answers don't even need to contain a single code block anyway.

Even when the day comes where assembly can't be compiled anywhere anymore, we'll keep these tags around, be it only for their historical value :-)