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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no 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!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net.POSTED!01cc3b7c!not-for-mail Reply-To: "Richard Riehle" From: "Richard Riehle" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <40C44F24.8010902@noplace.com> Subject: Re: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 02:35:52 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.81.218.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net 1086662152 66.81.218.8 (Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:35:52 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:35:52 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:1226 Date: 2004-06-08T02:35:52+00:00 List-Id: "Alexander E. Kopilovich" wrote in message news:mailman.71.1086647025.391.comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org... > I think that COBOL "suffered" from its features only in imagination of > people who were not involved in real commercial data processing (or were > involved, but hated their job for other reasons). COBOL, prior to the 1985 standard, was a dreadful language for structured programming. In fact, it was so horrible that I have no compunction in stating that true structured programming was almost impossible in the language. Even after the improvements in the 1985 standard, COBOL programmers continued to use the language in stupid ways. The ANSI-1985 standard added scope terminators to the IF, READ, and PERFORM statements, added an in-line PERFORM, added the powerful EVALUATE statement, and enabled subroutine calls by both value and reference. These and many other enhancements to the language were substantial improvements. However, most COBOL programmers took a long time to learn to use them. The COBOL EVALUATE statement is one of the most powerful constructs of any existing programming language. I wish we had something like it in Ada, but we don't. We must keep in mind that a large percentage of COBOL programmers were not blessed with a computer science degree. A large company would give its employees the IBM Programming Aptitude Test (PAT) and offer programming school to a few who got an A on that test. COBOL programmers more often than not were people who already understood the application domain and took their new knowledge of programming to that domain. Eventually, they might escape the company that trained them, but they would take the domain knowledge along with the programming skills to another similar domain when they changed jobs. The industry has changed since those early days. Now, we seldom train from within. The computer science graduate comes with a set of technological skills and no knowledge of the domain. Those skills are portable, as they were before, but we must educate that new programmer about the domain. I'm not sure that this is progress. Richard Riehle