Re: [open-cobol-list] Upper lower case and free format.

[John Culleton]

On Sunday 06 February 2011 13:52:04 michael wrote:
> On 02/06/2011 08:01 AM, John Culleton wrote:
> > We know that Open Cobol allows for upper/lower case to be used
> > freely and also for non-traditional line format i.e. no A and B
> > margins. Are these two features allowed by COBOL 85 or are they
> > later innovations?
>
> The 2002 standard allowed free-form and some compilers allowed it
> way before that.

OK. I also heard from Bill Klein that COBOL 85 allowed for upper and 
lower case. 

I am writing a little book on  business systems and while I like the 
freedom of using upper and lower case to increase readability the 
abolition of the fixed line format (A plus B) allows for too much 
variation. The fixed structure actually helps readability IMO. So I am 
safe to program in my usual style and call it COBOL 85. 

If punch cards had lower case I suspect Grace Hopper would have used
U/L when she first designed the language in 1960 or so. But not only 
punchcards but the interior character set of many 2nd generation 
computers could not handle lower case. I had charge of a Honeywell 
system (H110) that did not have lower case in 1970-1971. 
-- 
John Culleton
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