Re: [open-cobol-list] Which formatting convention to use?

[John Culleton]

On Thursday 06 August 2009 06:48:26 pm David Essex wrote:
> Duke Normandin wrote:
> > David Essex wrote:
>  > ...
>  >
> >> You can use what format you prefer.
> >> The default is fixed format.
> >
> > ...
> > I was looking for educated opinions as to which would serve
> >
>  > a noob best both now and in the long-term. ;)
>
> Well if you looking for an opinion, I prefer the free format.
>
> Why you ask ...
>
> <rant>
>
> The fixed format became the standard at the request of I*M.
> The reason was that they wanted to be compatible with a punch
> card format dating back to the 18th century.
>
> I can understand you have to deal with legacy issues, but the
> fixed format should have been an optional format, not the
> default. And it should have been declared obsolete when punch
> cards became obsolete, over 30+ years ago.
>
> So 50+ years later, the fixed format is still the default.
> All this to be compatible with a format, which most people
> working for I*M don't know or care about. And to be compatible
> with machines which can only be seen in museums.
>
> Is it any wonder that COBOL courses has been dropped by CS
> departments all around the world.
>
> </rant>
>
> Anyway, my 2 cents worth.
>
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COBOL is dropped because the heads of Computer Science departments 
learned an engineering/mathematical language first, and never 
understood the COBOL approach.  When they taught COBOL they tried 
to teach it as a mathematical language. They hated COBOL, taught it 
poorly and communicated that hatred to their students.  I used to 
recruit on those campuses and one prof asked me decades ago if we 
could ever get rid of COBOL.  The answer was of course no. We got 
rid of PL/I. The use of RGB is declining. Algol is just an 
historical artifact. FORTRAN isn't used any more, even though a 
free FORTRAN compiler comes with some distros of Linux.   

The first thing I had to do as a manager is retrain all those CS 
grads not only  in COBOL but in the method of analyzing business 
problems, setting up file formats and so on.  Those subjects were 
downplayed in Academia, simply because few of the profs had done 
any business systems analysis or programming. 

The COBOL standards makers haven't helped much. They keep trying to 
make COBOL look like C, and of course that destroys two major 
virtues of COBOL, readability and self-documentation. I mourn the 
death of the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.


-- 
John Culleton
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