[Info-vax] Better languages than BASIC

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/11/2024 8:56 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Jan 2024 20:25:34 -0500, bill wrote:
>> On 1/11/2024 1:30 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> If you want to write business applications, then either Java or a
>>> subset of C++. C++ subset to be chosen based on programmer skillsets
>>> and the problem to be solved.
>>
>> Or COBOL which was actually designed for the task.
> 
> Supposedly. But a couple of decades after the COBOL spec was first
> published, these things called “relational databases” appeared on the
> scene, and they soon became essential for “business applications”. And the
> best way to access them turned out to require generating SQL query
> strings. But good string handling had not been considered a necessity for
> “business applications” in COBOL. So it had to resort to nonstandard
> kludges tacked to the side to cope with SQL queries.

Dynamically generating SQL strings is actually a big no no.

That is the road to poor performance and big security holes.

Traditional Cobol embedded SQL does much better than that.

Arne