[Info-vax] Any stronger versions of the LMF planned ?, was: Re: LMF Licence Generator Code

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <471ad39c-dbd2-401a-bf3f-9eb3ab213c77n at googlegroups.com>, =?UTF-8?Q?Lawrence_D=E2=80=99Oliveiro?= <lawrencedo99 at gmail.com> writes:
> On Thursday, August 12, 2021 at 2:58:11 AM UTC+12, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> 
> > Here we are 30 years later and there is still=20
> > new COBOL being written every day.=20
> 
> By whom, and for what?

It is still used in the financial industry, for instance.  And, yes, 
people are writing new COBOL code.

> What I found ironic was the premise that COBOL was written specifically for=
>  =E2=80=9Cbusiness-oriented=E2=80=9D uses, eschewing any of that =E2=80=9Cs=
> cientific=E2=80=9D stuff like mathematical notation and floating point, or =
> even any decent dynamic string handling.
> 
> Then, a decade or two later, came along these things called =E2=80=9Crelati=
> onal databases=E2=80=9D, which were enthusiastically adopted by businesses-=
> -the very market that COBOL was supposedly optimized for.

One can use both.  Many do.

> But it turns out the best way to interface to a relational DBMS is to gener=
> ate SQL query strings. And for that, you need decent string handling, with =
> facilities for format substitution, argument quoting and the like. None of =
> which were envisaged in the original design of COBOL.
> 
> So today, even a language like Python, Perl or (spit) PHP would be a better=
>  fit for =E2=80=9Cbusiness needs=E2=80=9D than COBOL ...

Rdb SQL precompiler?