[Info-vax] VSI Python 3.8.2 port, with a OpenVMS Shark Logo...

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 11/21/20 8:53 PM, John Reagan wrote:
> On Saturday, November 21, 2020 at 8:39:37 PM UTC-5, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 11/21/20 8:13 PM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>>>
>>> BASIC and COBOL haven't seen consequential updates in a couple of
>>> decades, beyond the platform ports.
>>>
>> Pretty sure VMS BASIC does everything any other BASIC does and more. :-)
>>
>> As for COBOL, luckily the COBOL world refused to drink the OOP KoolAid
>> so the current COBOL running on OpenVMS has everything that a COBOL
>> Programmer needs. (Sadly, as the number of available COBOL Programmers
>> decreases due to retirement and death the people likely to be tasked
>> with taking over the current COBOL base and writing anything new will
>> probably lead to COBOL also being infected. But, such is the nature of
>> our industry!!)
>>
>> bill
> Oh, you haven't been keeping track of the COBOL standards.  It has full OOP in it.

I'm well aware of the standard.  I am also well aware of the fact the
the majority of COBOL shops didn't ask for it to be added to COBOL and
pretty much refused to use it.  As an aside, this is considered to be
one of the primary reasons why academia abandoned COBOL and even went
so far as to actively attack it.  How dare the COBOL world to want to
get the job done rather than accept that academia knows better than they
do about what they really needed.

> 
> Ignoring that set of features, the COBOL 2000 standard has several interesting features that VMS COBOL never fully picked up other than a few reserved words.
> 

Ignoring unneeded and unwanted features is something that the real
COBOL world has always been good at. There are a number of very
large and very important COBOL Information Systems that still fall
under the 1974 standard.  Nobody is as good at "If it ain't broke,
donb't fix it!" as COBOL Programmers.

bill