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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,18f7f6e041b3e0bf X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-08-17 07:30:45 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed.cgocable.net!read2.cgocable.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3D5E5E14.5010405@cogeco.ca> From: "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.0rc2) Gecko/20020618 Netscape/7.0b1 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Decimal Floating types References: <5ee5b646.0208160721.7ae05a3@posting.google.com> <3D5D2529.8070501@cogeco.ca> <5ee5b646.0208170252.181eec9d@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2002 10:30:44 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.150.168.167 X-Complaints-To: abuse@cogeco.ca X-Trace: read2.cgocable.net 1029594711 24.150.168.167 (Sat, 17 Aug 2002 10:31:51 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2002 10:31:51 EDT Organization: Cogeco Cable Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:28172 Date: 2002-08-17T10:30:44-04:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar wrote: > "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote in message news:<3D5D2529.8070501@cogeco.ca>... >>But for COBOL it means using >>library calls directly instead of a more natural >>"mathematic expression", whatever that be in COBOL ;-) > > As I mentioned in my previous message, it is not usual > to use COMPUTE at all in COBOL, so the difference is > between > > ADD FIELD-1 TO FIELD-2 GIVING FIELD-3. > > and > > CALL DEC-FLOAT-ADD USING FIELD-1 FIELD-2 FIELD-3 > > Now to be fair, it will be a bit annoying that for the > CALL, these fields have to be defined in a particular way, I'll concede that this is not too bad. I tend to think in C/Ada terms where you might have nested calls. But if you already have to read statements like: ADD FIELD-1 TO FIELD-2 GIVING FIELD-3. then I see no great leap in pain ;-) >>To a maintenance programmer, there is nothing worse than >>difficult to read code: library support for floating >>decimal in COBOL does precisely this, AFAIK. It solves >>one problem and creates another. > > You exaggerate. Probably because of "lack of knowledge of > modern COBOL" :-) It is true that I have no "modern COBOL experience". ;-) > Seriously, I don't see any significant maintenance problem > here. COBOL programmers use libraries all the time. I wasn't questioning this issue at all. Merely the "compute experience", but I think we agree on that above. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg