On 2/24/2013 11:30 AM, John Gilmore wrote:
In general, however, FORTRAN code is better because more coherent than COBOL code; and FORTRAN programmers, most of whom have scientific educations, have always been better paid than COBOL ones.
Every mother thinks her baby is beautiful. "Better" is a meaningless term in this case. When I worked on government contracts, their idea of better meant "working correctly and easy to maintain," regardless of efficiency (a colleague found one program that ran close to 24 hours, and decreased that to 2 minutes by moving one statement). A business outfit might define it as "cheapest or lowest TCO." An academic might consider coherence. Does APL fit any of these criteria?
Salaries vary by experience, need, and location. I know a number of system programmers with higher remuneration than ForTran or CoBOL programmers; should I generalize that HLASM programmers get paid more?
Gerhard Postpischil Bradford, Vermont ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
