Yes, COBOL has a lot of faults, and, yes, I consider PL/I to be much better.
However, a real programmer should be able to pick up a new language and be
productive in it, even one that he hates.
I distinguish between a person that views programming through COBOL colored
glasses and a programmer who happens to be using COBOL; it is unfair to link
the latter with the faults of the former.
IMHO, nobody really knows a language unless they are able to see deficiencies
in a language. I love PL/I and REXX, but there are definitely things that I
would change in each.
Similarly, even a bad language may have good points. I hate, loathe and despise
C, but I once found myself defending the common idiom
for (;;) {
foo;
}
as a perfectly clear DO FOREVER.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3
________________________________________
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on behalf of
Wayne Bickerdike [[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2023 1:56 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Stop the ragging on COBOL please [was: RE: ASM call by value]
During my early training we were sent to learn Michael Jackson structured
programming. MJ quotes Dijkstra a lot, however, I didn't realise that he
was a PL/I hater. That was the first language I learned and still think it
was a masterpiece. I encountered COBOL after I left IBM and it happened to
be Microfocus COBOL, a very odd variant designed for Z80/CPM based
microcomputers. It barely did the job since it only supported a rudimentary
ISAM file system. A couple of years later as our software house was going
broke, I went for an interview for a DOS/VSE COBOL role. The customer was
doubtful that my MF COBOL would translate to a mainframe role. It didn't
prove to be a problem but oh how I wished it had been a PL/I shop.
Inverted programs in COBOL? Blech..
On Tue, Mar 28, 2023 at 4:27 PM Tony Harminc <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Mar 2023 at 23:22, David Crayford <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > I think it was flippant Edsger W. Dijkstra quote:
> >
> > “The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should,
> > therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.”
>
> Dijkstra wasn't hot on a lot of languages:
>
> "If Fortran has been called an infantile disorder, PL/I must be
> classified as a fatal disease."
> -Edsger Dijkstra in Introduction to the Art of Computer Programming
>
> Which prompted, or at least provided a juicy quote for, Ric Holt's
> 1972 paper "Teaching the Fatal Disease (or) Introductory Computer
> Programming Using PL/I".
>
> > I use programming languages that I don't like all the time. C, in
> > particular, I dislike a lot. That doesn't mean they're not useful.
>
> Whew! And I thought you were a C fanatic. Thanks for disabusing me of that.
>
> Tony H.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
> send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
>
--
Wayne V. Bickerdike
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
