COBOL "non-myth" confirmed - Index and subscripts (MF on Windows)
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From: Pete Dashwood on 22 Sep 2007 07:35 "LX-i" <lxi0007(a)netscape.net> wrote in message news:s8GdnRHyUvA0OGnbnZ2dnUVZ_g-dnZ2d(a)comcast.com... > Pete Dashwood wrote: >> "LX-i" <lxi0007(a)netscape.net> wrote in message >> news:YaidncS6RurpsG7bnZ2dnUVZ_j6dnZ2d(a)comcast.com... >>> Robert wrote: >>>> On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:53:29 -0600, LX-i <lxi0007(a)netscape.net> wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> You've shown that what used to be significant overhead with subscripts >>>>> is now gone in one particular environment. >>>> It's gone on all platforms, or soon will be. >>>> >>>>> But, the completeness of being able to define an array with (an) >>>>> index(es) of its' very own appeals to some people, who will continue >>>>> to do it. Using an index isn't 1970's COBOL. >>>> That's true. Indexes were introduced 'recently' in the '74 Standard. My >>>> how time flies. >>> PICTURE was introduced in 68, if memory serves - is it obsolete too? >> >> I remember coding COBOL before there was a PICTURE clause (It was the >> COBOL 59 compiler). We used SIZE, CLASS, and USAGE to achieve the same >> result. I also remember being able to write OTHERWISE in an IF >> statement... happy days...:-) > > heh... Of course, I said picture wasn't obsolete, but I know a lot of > types now can be defined just with a USAGE clause. > >>> Just because something is old doesn't make it obsolete; sometimes its >>> age is a testament to its usefulness. :) >> >> I keep telling my friends that, but they still think I'm obsolete...:-) > > Aw - tell 'em to take a hike. :) Not likely. They'd drag me off my couch to go with them... :-) (Thanks for the support, anway, Daniel... :-)) Pete. -- "I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."
From: Anonymous on 22 Sep 2007 08:50 In article <s8GdnRbyUvCvOGnbnZ2dnUVZ_g-dnZ2d(a)comcast.com>, LX-i <lxi0007(a)netscape.net> wrote: [snip] >I/O is not necessarily faster, depending on how it's used. :) Someone once said something along the lines of 'it isn't how much you have, it's what you do with it'... and Thou Shalt Not Compile to the Source Pack still seems to be rather good advice. DD
From: Alistair on 22 Sep 2007 08:52 On 22 Sep, 06:22, Robert <n...(a)e.mail> wrote: > On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 09:52:17 -0700, Alistair <alist...(a)ld50macca.demon.co.uk> wrote: > >I do wish you hadn't tugged my chain by bringing Evolution into the > >argument. Especially as you don't appear to have much knowledge of how > >Evolution works. > > >Comments below: > > >On 21 Sep, 01:16, Robert <n...(a)e.mail> wrote: > >> On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:07:13 -0600, Howard Brazee <how...(a)brazee.net> wrote: > >> >On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:51:48 -0500, Robert <n...(a)e.mail> wrote: > > >> This is about evolution versus revolution. The evolutionary approach is to change one > >> thing, give it enough time to succeed or fail (testing) before moving on to the next > >> change. > > >Evolution is about incremental implementation of a multitude of > >changes simultaneously (or even all at once). > > Wrong, it's about one change at a time. Recommended reading: Notes on the Synthesis of > Form, by Alexander. It talks about how to design a teakettle, but is really about system > development in the abstract. > So, a bad analogy (Evolution) is being justified as applicable to programming based upon a book telling me how to design a kettle? Again you have failed. Evolution happens on many fronts simultaneously. A successful evolution in one factor may result in the carriage of a multitude of factors to the improved evolutionary form. Only some of those improvements will be beneficial and many will be detrimental. You can take the human as an example of the 'ultimate' evolved organism on the planet. There is no form factor that the human has that can be said to be the sole reason as to why we have become so successful. However, other factors can be shown to be barely adequate or even detrimental to human success: fallen arches; poor spinal strucure; poor vision.... Evolution may appear to be one change at a time to a naive observer but, in fact, there are many changes occuring all of the time. > >> The resolutionary approach is to change everything at once, for example to a new > >> language. > > >> Evolution is inherentely safe; > > >Except for those who get left behind or out-competed or even those > >blind evolutionary off-shoots which end up in dead-ends. > > Dead-end, left behind and out-competed depend on your definition of success, or which > third party measure you choose to believe. I know poor people who live happy, rewarding > lives. I'm poor, unhappy and lead a life that is largely unfulfilling. A generalised example does not prove your case. That is an argument that has raged elsewhere in this newsgroup. > > >> revolution is inherently prone to failure. Evolution is the > >> preferred approach. The problem is it may be too slow to keep up with environmental > >> changes, either because the environment is changing rapidly or because resistance to > >> change slows evolution to a crawl. With Cobol, the latter is the case. Institutionalized > >> foot dragging (standards) slowed Cobol's evolution so much that it was doomed to failure, > >> to fall behind even a moderate pace of environment change. The only alternative, albeit an > >> undesirable one, was a revolutionary change to another language: Java. > > >You clearly don't have any idea why Cobol became so yesteryear and > >java became the new fashion accessory. > > Conventional answer: Object Oriented. Wait a minute, Cobol has that. QED. > > >> This could have been prevented by allowing Cobol to change at a normal rate. True > >> conservatives would have seen that, and thereby conserved Cobol. > > >Then which version of the myriad Cobols would be the one true cobol? > > There's only One True Cobol -- The ANS/ISO Standard. And all the other evolutionary forms of cobol have satisfied your requirements for change and yet you persist in denigrating cobol for its' failure to adapt and change. > > >> What about the ones who destroyed Cobol with excessive resistance to change? > > >Resistance to change was not what killed Cobol. > > It's the easiest to talk about. Cobolers don't want to discuss the real reason -- lousy > code. It has already been observed by others that it is easier to write cruddy code in Java than in Cobol. I believe that, with the wrong attitude and poor application, it is possible to write cruddy code in any computing language (with the possible excepetion of Befunge where it could be argued that any program which executes is a success). > > >> They are > >> demonstrably not conservatives because they didn't conserve it. The most common > >> perjorative, dinosaur, might be appropriate. Dinosaurs became extinct because they were > >> incapable or unwilling to change .. except for a 'radical faction' that morphed into birds > >> and an old school we now call crocodilians. Both are minor players in the biological > >> world. > > >And don't forget the mammals which also derived from the dinosaurs. > >And just how rapidly do you expect creatures to evolve in order to > >avoid being wiped out by a meteor strike? You chose a bad analogy. > > You're right about a bad analogy. You're wrong about mammals deriving from dinosaurs. But cobol dinosaurs are evolved mammals? <joke> > Mammals originated during the carboniferous period, 350 to 300 million years ago. > Dinosaurs originated during the triassic period, 230 million years ago, and hit their peak > during the jurassic period, 150 million years ago. Didn't you see the movie? :) > > The two had common ancestors, most notably therapsids, which were the dominant animals > during the permian period, 275 million years ago, before dinosaurs.- Hide quoted text - > >From Wikipedia: <QUOTE> The evolution of mammals from synapsids, also known as mammal-like "reptiles" was a gradual process which took approximately 70 million years, from the mid-Permian to the mid-Jurassic, and by the mid- Triassic there were many species that looked like mammals. Note that synapsids are not reptiles at all, but belong to a distinct lineage of tetrapods. </QUOTE> and (supporting your argument): <QUOTE> The first amniotes apparently arose in the late Carboniferous. Within a few million years two important amniote lineages became distinct: the synapsids, from which mammals are descended ; and the sauropsids, from which lizards, snakes, crocodilians, dinosaurs and birds are descended. </QUOTE>
From: Anonymous on 22 Sep 2007 08:52 In article <13f8l5at83iq141(a)corp.supernews.com>, Charles Hottel <chottel(a)earthlink.net> wrote: [snip] >It is worse than I imagined, I though he was only "two faced" ;-) Whoever said 'Alas! Two faces dwell upon my head' fell short... by a goodly number of drinks. DD
From: Anonymous on 22 Sep 2007 09:04
In article <rpa9f39h9c5risaks7vjoud9q8e9dqa6j3(a)4ax.com>, Robert <no(a)e.mail> wrote: [snip] >The code needs SOMEthing that will >make it go around the >loop repeat-factor times. I couldn't think of an '85 Standard-compliant >way to write that. Eh? S'nothin' a fresh period, a few paragraph labels and a GO TO or three won't cure, that *always* works! DD |