Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!brl-adm!adm!PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu From: PAAAAAR%CALSTATE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: RE: C/IBM Message-ID: <16316@brl-adm.ARPA> Date: 28 Jun 88 15:15:12 GMT Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA Lines: 39 Both (Root Boy) Jim Cottrelland Chuck_M_Grandgent@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@CCS.CSUSCC.CALSTATE(doc-dick) paaaaar@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