APL\360

[Eric Smith]

On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 4:41 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:

> A viewpoint opposed to mine:
> "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
> regarded as a criminal offense."  - Edsger Dijkstra
>

As much as I generally highly respect Dijkstra, I agree with Fred, not
Dijkstra, on this one. COBOL was a remarkably good language for the problem
domain for which it was intended. As with all tools, it is less good for
other problem domains.

Learning and using any programming language will cause some language
specific habits to become ingrained, and you may have to "unlearn" some
when you learn a new language. That doesn't necessarily make either
language bad.