Re: Answering an Ada/COBOL Question

[Marin Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com>]

Robert Dewar wrote:

> That's true, but I am afraid this potential is so far
> unrealized. The COBOL sector in general regards C and C++
> as hacker languages unsuitable for fiscal programming, But
> they simply don't know about Ada as an alternative.

I've wondered why it is that the perception exists that C/C++ would be
unsuitable for financial software? They are, after all, "general
purpose" languages. They may lack some of the convenient I/O that COBOL
has and the support for decimal arithmetic, but one could probably build
up some libraries to support that. Is the perception just a matter of
someone slapping a label on the language? Someone says "COBOL =
Business" or "Java = Internet" and otherwise intelligent people just
assume that C/C++/Ada/Whatever can't do the same thing? (I can
understand that for non-technical types but why do technically trained
people swollow this?)

Not that I'm advocating C/C++ here. Ada would clearly provide better
support for financial software (I've got a bunch of financial packages
on my web page that do lots of useful computations!) and in general
doesn't have the boobytraps & shortcomings of C/C++. But I have in the
past built software that was serving business/financial functions in C,
so I know that it can be done.

MDC
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Marin David Condic
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