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 Cottrell    
and  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