[Info-vax] FORTRAN use, was: Re: Whither VMS?

[P. Sture]

In article <Kt6X5TPks3Dt at eisner.encompasserve.org>,
 koehler at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) wrote:

> In article <paul.nospam-DE86B9.22512614102009 at pbook.sture.ch>, "P. Sture" 
> <paul.nospam at sture.ch> writes:
> > 
> > I started with computers in 1977. RPG II was the development language, 
> > with COBOL for the payroll (bought in) package.
> > 
> > Next step was with PDP's (Hurrah!) using DIBOL (Digital Business 
> > Oriented Langauge). DIBOL was essentially a mix of COBOL and FORTRAN, 
> > and a very productive tool.
> 
>    There were always exceptions.  In 1977 I was still doing FORTRAN-IV
>    (aka Fortran-66) on my first PDP-10.   COBOL, DIBOL, ... you don't
>    do physics with those.

Understood, and likewise FORTRAN or C or C++ aren't the best choice for 
business applications (though FORTRAN 77 was a definite leap forward 
here).

For maintainability, I always preferred the COBOL way of describing 
print layouts to any language which depends on format strings embedded 
in the code section of programs.  But with today's graphical output, 
what do I know?

-- 
Paul Sture