Rich kids are into COBOL

[Ethan Dicks]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 1:54 PM, Roe Peterson <roeapeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wouldn't wish a COBOL career on my worst enemy.  What a god-awful mess.

I concur.  In 1978 or so, when I was new to BASIC (and still in Jr
High), my mother got me a book on COBOL
(https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2093357W/Standard_COBOL) in the
hopes, I think, of inspiring me on a career path.  I'd written a few
dozen working programs in BASIC and typed in many more at that point.
What I read horrified me.  How could anything be that mind-crushingly
verbose?  Pages and pages of form and very little function.
Fortunately for me, long before college, I fell into paying work in
microcomputers, then as I started college, minicomputers.  I did take
a FORTRAN course my first quarter at University (my one and only!) and
I did learn FORTRAN before C, but I don't think I was irreparably
damaged by my early efforts.

-ethan