[Info-vax] DIBOL-11

[plugh]

On Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 2:21:55 PM UTC-7, Paul Gavin wrote:
> Many years ago I worked on MCBA accounting apps written in DIBOL that ran on PDP-8 and PDP-11's with RT-11, TSX/DBL and RSTS/E. MBCA had a poor mans ISAM that really wasn't all that bad considering it worked on all those platforms. Cannot say I really liked DIBOL all that much but it was compact and relatively easy to learn. Fast forward to the mid 80's on VMS, I even did QIOs in DIBOL on VMS to interact with 3270 emulators. 
> 
> Worked for DEC Software Services from 1983-92 and had to do all sorts of odd stuff. The only language on VMS I didn't do much with was Fortran. 
> 
> Paul

Then you will remember their distinctive code style. Roughly 20 years after I left MCBA-based work, I was writing due diligence reports in the mid 90's. One site involved an A/R system with source code. I recognized the style immediately: the file naming standard was the first clue. The MCBA code was so table-driven that data declarations at the top gave away the game even as there was no copyright. The procedures followed their naming standards, code organization was also immediately recognizable. Such was the quality of that system design.

I have to admit I enjoyed the gob-smacked response of the sysadmin as he had to explain the code's provenance.