[Info-vax] COBOL example $MGBLSC

[bill]

On 9/9/2023 12:51 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
> On 09/09/2023 17:47, bill wrote:
>> On 9/9/2023 12:15 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>>> Today it is considered weird that you can insert arbitrary
>>> spaces in variable names.
>>>
>>
>> That is all about parsing and really has nothing to do with the
>> function of the language.  The separator in that context is a comma,
>> not a space, tab or any other invisible character.  :-)
>>
>> bill
> 
> I would not consider it good practice. I have never used Fortran, and i 
> was fazed by Arne's snippet
> 

A lot of things were done at the time Fortran came about that are not
considered good practice today.  Like self-modifyng code.  But people
here, if anyone, know that changing behavior can have a devastating
effect on legacy applications.

No one writing real Fortran today would do that.  I doubt anyone in
the past ever did it deliberately.  But I am sure the parser was written
in a very resource limited environment and many things were left out.
You  know that COBOL had no range or bounds checking originally.  You
wouldn't do that today and most COBOL compilers today (all of the ones
I am familiar with) have it at least as an option.  Hind sight is always
20/20.

bill