C/IBM

[PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET at cunyvm.cuny.edu]

Both (Root Boy) Jim Cottrell    <rbj at icst-cmr.arpa>
and  Chuck_M_Grandgent at cup.portal.com
have recently had the courage to praise COBOL.

I agree with them.  COBOL and Cwere both developed by programmers for p
programmers.  Both have more in them than meets the eye. Both have
short hand ways of saying things -- I like
      SORT FILE
and
      05 WAGES   PIC $*(7).V99.
for example in COBOL
as much as I like
      while (*p++=*q++)
/* if I got it right!*/

or even  MOVE Q TO P
No that must be wrong, its shorter than the above,
its the same length as strcpy(p,q)
and does more...

Another odd thing about the two languages,
both C and COBOL have been used for operating systems and compilers!

Trouble is many people don't learn clever COBOL.
Try
     IF A AND B AND C > 0 SET P UP BY 1
     ELSE..... .
or
splitting the cents and dollars up in a field containing money.

And most important of all -- how do you do exact decimal arithmetic on money
in any language accept COBOL?

(Personally I don't want my wages  suffering floating point round off:-)
Dick Botting
PAAAAAR at CCS.CSUSCC.CALSTATE(doc-dick)
paaaaar at calstate.bitnet
PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@{depends on the phase of the moon}.EDU
Dept Comp Sci., CSUSB, 5500 State Univ Pkway, San Bernardino CA 92407
Disclaimer: I am an only an egg