[Info-vax] COBOL Is Obsolete (was Re: Any stronger versions of the LMF planned ?)

[Scott Dorsey]

=?UTF-8?Q?Jan-Erik_S=c3=b6derholm?=  <jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com> wrote:
>Den 2021-09-22 kl. 10:15, skrev Lawrence D’Oliveiro:
>> On Saturday, September 18, 2021 at 12:14:00 AM UTC+12, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> COBOL isn't a programming language. COBOL is a data description language
>>> that has some programming features on the side. If you look at a well-written
>>> typical COBOL program, the procedure division is a very small part of the total
>>> length.
>> 
>
>I think that Scott tried to make a joke there. It very much depends
>on the actual application, of course, what the ratio between data
>definition and procedure code is.

Slightly, but there is an important grain of truth in there.  People need
to get their head around it because if they come from the C/fortran/perl/python
world where programs are just procedures, they will find the COBOL/RPG world
where the procedure is only a minor part of the program to be incomprehensible.
COBOL is for moving data around.
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."