> -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Comstock > Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 12:32 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Controlling COBOL DDs named SYSOUT
<snip> > Using DISPLAY to generate a report is very inefficient > relative to using an FD and OPEN, CLOSE, and WRITE verbs. > (Unless, of course, you OPEN-WRITE-CLOSE for every record!) > You can't believe the number of COBOL training courses that > use DISPLAY and ACCEPT to get programmers writing complete > programs quickly. This may be one reason many COBOL > programmers use this approach: it's the first one they > see. We eschew that approach in our courses. Even though > the student can't produce a complete program until the > third lab, we are adamant that the student learn the > correct way to work with files. We don't even introduce > DISPLAY until the fourth day of the intro class. > You've got that right! I see many code examples in many languages on the Web. I tend to try to correct messages where there is "suboptimal" code. Why? Because cut and paste programmers will continue to use that horrible code until the end of time. Of course, I cannot fix all of it because I really don't have the time or the talent. I would love to have someone with a maintenance mindset do a "check" of some of our COBOL code (no time or money for that). I rewrote a single COBOL program myself. The run time went from about 12 hours to less than one hour. And it was a change to only one paragraph. And not likely a truly optimal change at that. -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged and/or confidential. It is for intended addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited and could, in certain circumstances, be a criminal offense. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by reply and delete this message without copying or disclosing it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
