Re: Answering an Ada/COBOL Question

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

On Sun, 14 Nov 1999, Robert Dewar wrote:
> In article
> <Pine.BSF.4.10.9911132308290.27448-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>,
>   Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote:
> > I also found the ML version of the case syntactically much
> > nicer. Also, pattern matching works on more than just
> > sequences of booleans. Note that I am not commenting at all on
> > the suitableness of FPs for
> > fiscal programming, just on the claim of "most elegant case
> > design" for  COBOL.
> 
> These are not simply Booleans in COBOL, they are conditions,
> which are rather different in COBOL than other languages.
> 
> Make sure you really know the COBOL facility well (don't just
> rely on Richard's quick example) before deciding that the ML
> syntax is better for dealing with decision tables. Knowing and
> having used both languages, I definitely agree with Richard here
> and disagree with Brian. Yes the ML facility is general and
> powerful, No, it is not nearly as syntactically friendly and
> convenient as COBOL.

That's fine, I respect your opinion, and readily acknowledge that I don't 
know COBOL, and hence, have no opinion on COBOL per se. A quick example or 
sequence of examples showing where COBOL is superior to ML or Haskell
would be appreciated. Since you know ML, you know that the pattern
matching facility does work over data types, and in the Caml dialects
there are niceties like pattern guards, range patterns, and stream
patterns.

It should be mentioned that there is a language used to program soft
real-time and distributed systems called Erlang. This language was
designed at Ericsson with a lot of "human engineering" effort, and one 
of the things its designers insist on as being responsible for its success
is its pattern matching syntax.

> (too many competent
> programming language experts are sure COBOL is junk and the fact
> that they have never looked at it does not deter them from this
> strongly held opinion). A little anecdote there. In academic
> programming language circles, it is almost required that people
>
> a) not know COBOL
> b) know that it is junk

I don't hold that view. Many people (inside *and* outside academia) hold
this view of Ada. I'd suspect that if you polled Silicon Valley more than 
90% of the programmers just know that Ada sucks. 

-- Brian