C/IBM

[Gary Allen]

In article <16316 at brl-adm.ARPA> PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET at cunyvm.cuny.edu writes:
>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
[......]
If COBOL (or for that matter BASIC or FORTRAN) is the answer, I really
don't have any interest in the question!! What a snob, huh?
[......]
>both C and COBOL have been used for operating systems and compilers!
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Let me guess, A reverse Polish BASIC interpreter with 80 column input
on punched cards, right?                            

>Trouble is many people don't learn clever COBOL.
                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^
                                    Oxymoronic!!

[.....]
>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?

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Programming languages are tools; a
particular tool is for a particular purpose. No carpenter would argue
that his hammer was as good as his power saw.

>(Personally I don't want my wages  suffering floating point round off:-)
Neither do I, but accountants have no need for self-documenting device
drivers :-)
>Dick Botting

Gary Allen
Apollo Computer
Chelmsford, MA
{decvax,yale,umix}!apollo!gallen

"Even the finest shoe makes a terrible hat"
  -- Japanese proverb from Bartlett's.