From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,86616b1931cbdae5 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" Subject: Re: Is Ada likely to survive ? Date: 1997/08/26 Message-ID: <340318BD.3A64@gsg.eds.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 268637147 References: <97081409425535@psavax.pwfl.com> <5td7pt$fuj@saturn.brighton.ac.uk> Reply-To: nospam@gsg.eds.com Organization: EDS MS Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-08-26T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar wrote: > > (in the case of COBOL, I would say the most important ideas are > > scaled decimal arithmetic with specified portable precision, and > completely portable arithmetic semantics. COMPUTATIONAL-n has the semantics of whatever the vendor wants it to mean, making it highly nonportable. Of course, PICTURE is portable. > the hierarchical approach to data layout I hope that you're not claiming that it originated with COBOL. > lightweight refinement, avoiding the need for heavily nested control > structures. In practice PERFORM turns out to be a booby trap; nested IF and DO loops are far more readable and less error prone. In fact, if you look at the last few language revisions you will see that the COBOL community has moved away from out-of-line PERFORM statements in favor of nested control structures. > This is not necessarily a complete list, Definitely not complete. COBOL has some other features that are nice, although they did not originate in COBOL and the syntax is ghastly. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Senior Software SE The values in from and reply-to are for the benefit of spammers: reply to domain eds.com, user msustys1.smetz or to domain gsg.eds.com, user smetz. Do not reply to spamtrap@library.lspace.org