They had a bad COBOL instructor! We were writing our first program in the first 2 weeks of my first COBOL course. We didn't understand all the details of the FILE DIVISION et al at that point, but we were at least learning the language and applying it.
Rex -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Bob Bridges Sent: Monday, February 6, 2023 1:27 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: I want to cry I hesitate at this first line, Paul. I can't tell its context (because you deleted the post you're responding to, ahem!), but I'm remembering how I got into programming when I first encountered it: Professor, on the VERY FIRST DAY of class: So if you're writing a program to compare two numbers and display the larger one, what's the first thing you have to do? Class, after thoughtful silence: Well, you print the larger number... Class: You compare the numbers.... Class: [Other ideas] Professor: Nope. The VERY FIRST thing you have to do is GET THE FIRST NUMBER! ...And he wrote on the blackboard: GET N1 Then: GET N2 And eventually: PUT ANSWER The language was PL/C (a subset of PL/1), so the verbs GET and PUT are in the language; without knowing it, we (well, he) had just written our first syntactically correct PL/1 program. On the first or second day of class he handed out cards with JCL on them that we could wrap around the programs we wrote so as to get answers back at the printer at the data center. A week or two in he required us to write a program that would read data from a catalogued dataset, so we had to code for unknown inputs. The realization that other languages used other syntax came later; we were coding, even with an imperfect understanding of how it works. Meanwhile I talked with students of a COBOL course who were six weeks into the class and only then encountering loops - but only in books, for they were a long way from being permitted to write a program for themselves. I heartily recommend how my own teacher did it. Of course you may not have meant any differently. But it sounded a little like it. Me, I was immediately hooked, and started spending all my free time at the data center, teaching myself FORTRAN and Basic and writing games and accounting utilities (accounting being my major). Had I taken that COBOL course, I'm sure it would have confirmed me in my initial supposition that programming must be boring. --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 * Political correctness is the opposite of thought. It proceeds by moral condemnation and emotional outrage: Anyone who can imagine such a thought must be a bad person, or a crazy one. -Maggie Gallagher, 2005-02-22 */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Paul Gorlinsky Sent: Monday, February 6, 2023 13:37 Absolutely! They should be taught how to program and debug first, then the constructs of individual languages. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The information contained in this message is confidential, protected from disclosure and may be legally privileged. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, distribution, copying, or any action taken or action omitted in reliance on it, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
