On Wed, 31 Aug 2022 08:38:19 +1000, Andrew Rowley wrote:
>
>If we're looking at alternatives, there's also Java. I can never
>understand what the DFSORT solutions are doing from reading the control
>cards, ...
>
+1
The DFSORT command syntax is dreadful -- too positional. It's
hard to read ...,keyword,value,keyword,value,...
Considerably better would be ,keyword(value), or ,keyword=value,...
I suppose the design is OK to programmers versed in it, but it
repels the novice. It may be easy for a computer to parse,
but silicon is now cheaper than carbon.
> ... and I'm sure I am not alone there. A programming language makes
>it much easier for the person who has to understand it in the future.
>
DFSORT is properly data driven, like some of my favorite UNIX utilities;
it's the correct design.
MVS, however, makes it unduly difficult to combine utilities. DFSORT
has a transformation to upper case; UNIX sort needs none. It's
easy enough to:
sort <arguments> | awk '{ print toupper() }'
No need to replicate such a function in every utility that might need it.
--
gil
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