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: 103376,5faad1722103f6a7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!cyclone.bc.net!news.uunet.ca!nf3.bellglobal.com!nf1.bellglobal.com!nf2.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics (COBOL Popularity) References: <90Stc.15309$be.3117@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net> <40b86431$0$186$edfadb0f@dread11.news.tele.dk> <40B888E0.5040707@noplace.com> <40B8C86A.3050302@noplace.com> <40BE6BFD.8030305@noplace.com> <40BF141F.8020001@noplace.com> <40C38E7C.64564F@notes.udayton.edu> <99nyc.10465$uX2.6211@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net> In-Reply-To: <99nyc.10465$uX2.6211@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:39:13 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.96.223.163 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sympatico.ca X-Trace: news20.bellglobal.com 1086986288 198.96.223.163 (Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:38:08 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 16:38:08 EDT Organization: Bell Sympatico Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:1406 Date: 2004-06-11T16:39:13-04:00 List-Id: Richard Riehle wrote: > "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote in message > news:Nplyc.52642$8k4.1169496@news20.bellglobal.com... >>Richard Riehle wrote: >>>"I R T" wrote in message >>>news:oenv7hhc.fsf@pop-server.bigpond.net.au... >>... >>>Richard Riehle >> >>One of the areas that COBOL was very successful in (and still), >>is providing the necessary facilities to perform business >>functions. While it may seem trivial, the need to format >>numeric values (particularly monetary values) in a picture >>format is so prevalent, that it becomes a major pain to >>use other languages that don't conveniently provide this. > > You wrote this in reply to my note about the role of the > DoD in the survival of COBOL. The events of the time, > mentioned in my earlier post, were such that IBM had > a virtual monopoly in the computer business, much the > way Microsoft has today. At that time, the Federal > Government was less inclined to accomodate that > monopoly than is the current government. Therefore, a > lot of effort was made to ensure that all qualified bidders > were able to compete for contracts. I wasn't trying to refute/correct/amend the political history as you have laid it out. I was only making a more general comment on COBOL on the basis of its technical merits, which may, as you seem to suggest, have had very little to do with its acceptance. If that is what is being said, I won't argue it. To return to my earlier comment (in a general way), much of today's software seems to overlook things that are so essential for business use. Picture formatting was one example of something that frequently comes up. If I were to make a flying leap and guess, I would say that neither Java, nor C# have a standard routine to do this for the programmer (someone please correct me if there is a 'standard way' to do this in either/both of these). > PL/I did not look like COBOL to COBOL programmers and it > did not look like Fortran to Fortran programmers. In the early 70s, I was using an IBM-1130 with FORTRAN. We also had a compiler known as SL/I (Student Language/I), which was obviously a PL/I subset, though I did not know it at the time. And yes, to a then FORTRAN programer, it sure _DID_ look different (but I loved it at the time). I personally didn't meet up with COBOL, until I met the IBM-360. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg