[Info-vax] Writer advice requested

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 15-11-2010 16:07, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> On 11/15/2010 3:49 PM, Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
>> On 2010-11-15 20:28, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>>> On 11/15/2010 1:06 PM, Rob Brown wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 at 18:52 -0000, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> What's wrong with COBOL?
>>>>
>>>> A cross between Assembler and English, with all the disadvantages of
>>>> both.
>>>>
>>>
>>> COBOL is okay in its place! Its place, however, is not where I want to
>>> work. It was my first high level language (Computer Programming 101 &
>>> 102
>>> from the University of Virginia).
>>>
>>> FORTRAN IV was my second language, self taught, from D.D. McCracken's
>>> "Introduction to FORTRAN IV Programming. FORTRAN was what paid the bills
>>> for many years.
>>
>> So COBOL would not be OK even if it "paid the bills" ?
>> It does for me so I guess I like COBOL... :-)
>
> Hey! Pay me and I'll write COBOL. Though I expect I'll have to re-learn
> it. I'm sure that the language has changed a great deal since 1968!
> There have been how many revisions to the standard in the last 42 years?

The standards are 68, 74, 85 and 2002.

So the standard has definitely evolved.

But the 74 and 85 revisions was minor.

I am not familiar with COBOL, but my guess would be that very
few COBOL programs actually use the new 2002 features.

(and if we talk VMS then I don't even think HP COBOL supports 2002)

Arne