[Info-vax] Writer advice requested

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

On 2010-11-16 01:29, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 15-11-2010 18:37, Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
>> On 2010-11-16 00:02, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> 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)
>>
>> And the applications I support where written in the 80's... :-)
>> Here is one of the apps with the longest time between the oldest
>> and the newest version still on-disk :
>>
>> > dir DKA200:[xx.yy]zzzz.COB
>>
>> Directory DKA200:[xx.yy]
>>
>> zzzz.COB;9 27/35 22-JUL-2003 12:51:52.04
>> zzzz.COB;8 26/35 5-SEP-1997 15:25:53.74
>> zzzz.COB;7 26/35 19-MAR-1985 16:55:21.00
>>
>> And the header says :
>>
>> ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
>> CONFIGURATION SECTION.
>> SOURCE-COMPUTER. VAX-11.
>> OBJECT-COMPUTER. VAX-11.
>> DATA DIVISION.
>>
>> Today it runs on a Alpha DS20e and a DIFF on the files
>> shows that there where no platform related changes
>> to the source from the 1985 version to today.
>
> :-)
>
>  > That is what forward/backward compatibility means, right ? :-)
>
> I see it more as the benefits of a stable environment.
>
> You could have changed OS 3 times and programming language
> 3 times since then.
>
> Arne
>

Well, before the VAX 11/750 version, the same code runed on a
IBM mainframe. I think I still have the tools (COM files) to
automaticly change some minor syntacticaly differences between
the IBM and the VAX COBOL versions...

Right now, the thought (not *my* thought) is to move these
applications (or rather what they do) into JD Edwards
(now owned by Oracle).