On 28/3/23 13:56, Wayne Bickerdike wrote:
During my early training we were sent to learn Michael Jackson structured
programming.
I had a few brief years as an applications programmer back in the early
90s. I came from operations so I had to take the IBM aptitude test. The
interviewer held out both hands, one with an open palm the other with a
clenched fist and asked me "what hand is the ball bearing in"?. Anyway,
they shipped us all off for a months training in rural Berkshire just
outside London for training. Very nice it was too, loads of nice quaint
pubs. We learned Jackson Structured Programming methodology before we
wrote any code. We drew org chart diagrams to design programs. Each box
had a different character in the top right such as a asterix or a circle
to determine iteration or selection. It was decent for designing COBOL
programs. I think it only ever took of in the UK, maybe because Jackson
was a Brit.
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.
The PL/I specification was ahead of its time. It was too difficult to
write a decent compiler so the guys at bell invented C. PL/I is arguable
a better language then C but it's a niche language. IIRC, roughly 90% of
mainframe applications are written in COBOL. I only worked with PL/I
briefly but it was a breath of fresh air after COBOL. It had generic
functions and lots of really nice features such as built-in multi-tasking.
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.
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