>I myself dislike COBOL for the very simple and personal reason that it's so >WORDY. ******* I am not a COBOL programmer, except for some very minor attempts a long time ago. However, I very much respect the proper use of the WORDY aspect. It seems to help with maintenance and updating of large, complex commercial programs that were originally written (in good, well-thought out words) long ago. The language itself has been carefully updated and seems to lack the constantly changing, sometimes not-so-well-thought-out aspect of many of the PC languages today. (And, since so much of COBOL programming seems to be in significant financial areas, it seems to avoid the frequent "little problem details" that apparently afflict the "more modern" languages.)
Very short story: Long ago, my manager and I were sent to a smaller, rather "northern" country to evaluate (to sell to customers) a potential application program written there. I cannot remember the application, but I do remember seeing a listing that fit on a single page, being an extreme opposite of WORDY. It was APL, of course, and even the authors needed considerable practice to be able to explain how it worked. (We rejected the potential SW product and managed to escape without being murdered.) Bill Ogden ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
