From: ok@cs.mu.oz.au (Richard O'Keefe)
Subject: Re: Modernizing Ada
Date: 15 Oct 89 09:54:12 GMT [thread overview]
Message-ID: <2431@munnari.oz.au> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 6780@hubcap.clemson.edu
In article <6780@hubcap.clemson.edu>, billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 ) writes:
> COBOL started out (Ichbiah, CACM, Oct. 84) with "exactly the same"
> motives that Ada started with!! Because of COBOL's demonstrated
> inability to change with the times, the DoD decided to just scrap
> COBOL completely and start over.
COBOL has changed *dramatically* with time. Successive COBOL standards
have not merely added new things (like nested programs, terminators on
compound statements, new statements) but have also discarded old things
(like the ALTER statement). The main complaint that I have heard from
COBOL users is that new standards change too much too fast; adapting to
a new standard is not just a matter of recompling. In fact there is no
shortage of companies that make a living converting other people's old
COBOL programs to new standards.
COBOL is guilty of a lot of things, but not of standing still.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1989-10-15 9:54 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1989-10-13 20:28 Modernizing Ada Erland Sommarskog
1989-10-14 19:13 ` Adding Multiple Inheritance (was: Modernizing Ada) Ron Guilmette
1989-10-14 20:38 ` Edward Berard
1989-10-15 20:57 ` Scott Simpson
1989-10-15 1:16 ` Dik T. Winter
1989-10-14 20:50 ` Modernizing Ada William Thomas Wolfe, 2847
1989-10-15 9:54 ` Richard O'Keefe [this message]
1989-10-15 17:44 ` COBOL (Was: Modernizing Ada; now moving to comp.lang.misc) William Thomas Wolfe, 2847
1989-10-16 3:50 ` Richard O'Keefe
1989-10-17 0:46 ` Modernization William Thomas Wolfe, 2847
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1989-10-05 15:29 Translating 83 => 9X (Was: stt
1989-10-08 17:56 ` Modernizing Ada William Thomas Wolfe, 2847
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