Rich kids are into COBOL

[Rich Alderson]

From: Eric Smith
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2015 12:36 PM

> On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 9:55 AM, Sean Conner <spc at conman.org> wrote:

>> It was thus said that the Great Chuck Guzis once stated:

>>> Example: Consider a section of a program with 4 consecutive paragraphs,
>>> named PARA-1 through PARA-4.  One can say in the same program:

>>> PERFORM PARA-1 23 TIMES.

>> Um ...

>>   for i = 1 , 23 do
>>     para_1()
>>     para_2()
>>     para_3()
>>     para_4()
>>   end

> No. In the COBOL example PARA-1 though PARA-4 are consecutive
> paragraphs, not functions that are terminated by a return (explicit or
> implicit).  If you want to think of it as a function, the paragraphs
> are all part of a single function, but both the entry and return
> points of the function are variable, specified by the caller!

Actually, both you and I missed this one, Eric.

It really ought to read

    for i = 1 , 23 do
    	para_1()
    end

because the PERFORM verb only executes multiple (consecutive) paragraphs when
there is an explicit THROUGH clause.

                                                                Rich

Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134

mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org

http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/