From: Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com>
Subject: Re: COBOL Interesting ? (and off-topic?) (Was Latin, etc.)
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 06:17:13 GMT
Date: 2001-02-05T06:17:13+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <95lgh6$3gr$1@nnrp1.deja.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: oe3f6.5161$Zp3.425471@e3500-chi1.usenetserver.com
In article <oe3f6.5161$Zp3.425471@e3500-chi1.usenetserver.com>,
"Peter Richtmyer" <pmr@efortress.com> wrote:
> Seriosuly, I find what you said very interesting. I would
> like to know what the other "several languages" were in your
> study.
For the comparison, we used C, Pascal, and COBOL. One of the
things that helps COBOL is the VERY light syntax of internal
procedures.
> And more about "...the things that make COBOL an interesting
> language" to you.
Interesting features of COBOL, a brief non-comprehensive list
1. The fact that all binding to subroutines is dynamic at
runtime instead of static at link time. It is routine
for COBOL programmers to change individual subroutines
in running programs, and to introduce new ones. This
can be done these days with DLL's etc, but it is part
of the COBOL language, and always has been.
2. The light syntax for top down refinement (PERFORM). As
a result COBOL programmers, in contrast to Ada programmers
do not like to nest constructs heavily, instead they
refine with names.
if Balance is Negative
perform Send-Bill
else
perform Record-Credit
end if.
Send-Bill.
...
Record-Credit.
...
The syntactic overhead for defining these procedures is
what you see, the name and a single period, period.
3. The fully portable arithmetic model, allowing high
precision decimal scaled arithmetic (duplicated in
Ada in annex G, along with the PICTURE mechanism,
which is very powerful and easy to use).
4. Interesting high level verbs like SORT, INSPECT etc.
Well I could add more, but that's enough for now :-)
Perhaps if your reply about COBOL also referred to Ada then
> we could keep "on-topic" and avoid what someone in the parent
> thread called the "Usenet-police-callers". :-)
>
> In a past life I was a COBOL programmer. I have more
recently taught
> (in-house) and programmed Ada, C and C++, and I always
defended
> COBOL (and RPG !) for their place in software development.
> Especially when COBOL is being maligned by some
"wet-behind-the-ears"
> over-paid and under-trained so-called engineer that does not
even know
> what "COBOL" stands for, no less how or when to use it.
>
> I also worked for while as a C++ programmer in a place where
there
> was open "class warfare" between the COBOL programmers and
the
> C++ programmers. On the whole, the COBOL programmers were
> the "better class of people" at that job. (He said
"Object-ively" :-)
>
> Best regards,
> Peter
>
>
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prev parent reply other threads:[~2001-02-05 6:17 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2001-02-04 2:33 COBOL Interesting ? (and off-topic?) (Was Latin, etc.) Peter Richtmyer
2001-02-05 6:17 ` Robert Dewar [this message]
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