On Sun, 30 Jul 2023 17:32:54 -0400, Bob Bridges wrote: > > ... But it never seemed to me that COBOL statements were any easier to > learn, or more intuitive, than those of FORTRAN or Basic. > In defense of verbosity:
Once in the late 1960s I counseled a physics graduate student who was struggling to learn FORTRAN. He coded many assignment statements that corresponded to elements of a matrix, then PRINT <coefficients> He came to me asking why the computer had not found the solution to a system of linear equations. since then, perhaps earlier, I have disliked the use of "=" for assignment. Some languages do better with "SET variable = expression", or Pascal with "variable := expression" (the asymmetric delimiter is informative.) C tries and perhaps does worse by using "=" for assignment but something else for a relational operator. Rexx and PL/I do yet worse by using "=" for both and depending on context-sensitivity. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN