26 Dec
2012
26 Dec
'12
3:10 p.m.
On 12/26/2012 01:19 PM, Dave wrote:
Making programmers write actuarial code in Cobol is
just plain cruel. I
well remember a "IF ..... THEN COMPUTE ... ON SIZE ERROR ....." that
blew the compiler stack because it got to a closing ")" and didn't know
if it was part of the logical expression for the "IF" , or part of the
"COMPUTE" or a subscript....
Most of my field experience was supporting the COBOL compiler and
runtime. I remember Grace Hopper and the Navy Audit Tests for COBOL 74.
(Now *there's* and acronym that few people remember: FCCTS - Federal
COBOL Compiler Testing Service).
It always seemed to me that the resolution of about half the PSRs
submitted by users could be solved by quoting chapter and verse from the
CODASYL spec--"I'm aware that you think it SHOULD work that way, but it
doesn't").
Still, for its time, until the rise (and fall) of PL/I, COBOL had a lot
of interesting features that other languages didn't have--the ability to
specify the precision of a calculation; MOVE CORRESPONDING, ISAM as an
integral part of the language, incredible variety of the PERFORM verb.
Statements like EXAMINE/INSPECT, TALLYING or REPLACING....
A lot of the Y2K work on COBOL stuff was done by shall we say, "senior"
programmers for good wages at the time==$50/hour was not unusual for
COBOL contract work in 1998.
It's fun introducing a young 'un who knows C or Java to the intricacies
of COBOL... :)
--Chuck