Re: [OT] On old languages (COBOL)

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

Interesting, but not really compelling. Cobol got its start at a time when
there just plain wasn't anything else to address the needs of business
programming. It was selling umbrellas in the middle of a rainstorm. Once it
got its huge base of usage, it wasn't about to be unseated easily simply
because of the huge investment in assets. Managers didn't need to understand
the code - they understood the balance sheet. Any attempt to switch from
what they had to something new was going to be horrendously costly, so
technical advantages aside, they were going to stick with Cobol.

Its important to understand that when thinking of advancing the usage of
Ada. Its very hard - mostly impossible - to get existing projects unseated.
If it was programmed in X - its going to stay in X until some time when it
is declared outmoded and is supplanted by a whole new system. The secret to
success is to have the guys building the whole new system convinced that Ada
is a better choice. If we are the guys dreaming up and building the new
systems, that is more likely to happen.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Adrian Hoe" <mailbox@*nospam*adrianhoe.com> wrote in message
news:3d05aa8e_1@news.tm.net.my...
>
> One of the reason COBOL still around is that its syntax is easily
> understood by managers. Not C/C++.
>
> How about Ada? A whole bunch of managers don't even know what's Ada
> and certainly its existence. Not to mention its technical merits.
> These managers I refered to are business managers.
>
> Perhaps, if Ada were to have the COBOL-like syntax, it had already
> became a legacy! ;-)