During my early training we were sent to learn Michael Jackson structured programming. MJ quotes Dijkstra a lot, however, I didn't realise that he was a PL/I hater. That was the first language I learned and still think it was a masterpiece. I encountered COBOL after I left IBM and it happened to be Microfocus COBOL, a very odd variant designed for Z80/CPM based microcomputers. It barely did the job since it only supported a rudimentary ISAM file system. A couple of years later as our software house was going broke, I went for an interview for a DOS/VSE COBOL role. The customer was doubtful that my MF COBOL would translate to a mainframe role. It didn't prove to be a problem but oh how I wished it had been a PL/I shop.
Inverted programs in COBOL? Blech.. On Tue, Mar 28, 2023 at 4:27 PM Tony Harminc <t...@harminc.net> wrote: > On Mon, 27 Mar 2023 at 23:22, David Crayford <dcrayf...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > I think it was flippant Edsger W. Dijkstra quote: > > > > “The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, > > therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.” > > Dijkstra wasn't hot on a lot of languages: > > "If Fortran has been called an infantile disorder, PL/I must be > classified as a fatal disease." > -Edsger Dijkstra in Introduction to the Art of Computer Programming > > Which prompted, or at least provided a juicy quote for, Ric Holt's > 1972 paper "Teaching the Fatal Disease (or) Introductory Computer > Programming Using PL/I". > > > I use programming languages that I don't like all the time. C, in > > particular, I dislike a lot. That doesn't mean they're not useful. > > Whew! And I thought you were a C fanatic. Thanks for disabusing me of that. > > Tony H. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- Wayne V. Bickerdike ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
