[open-cobol-list] Identification Division still needed!

[vince Coen]

Yes I agree but I ALWAYS use notes within a Cobol source to comment or
explain what the programs does or/and within sections, paragraphs if not
only to remind me why I did something.

It is hard enough to do maintenance on one's own program after some time
let alone someone else's program without extra comments describing a
section of code.

I also use it to record changes to the code.

This I have done since the 60's but as for system & program
documentation that still mostly remains as separate documents if not
because it was produced by the Analyst for the project and in maintained
as well as I can for any changes that occur.

This is fairly standard practice throughout the industry (the IT one!).


Vince


On 06/02/15 15:10, John Culleton wrote:
>               START RANT.
>
> One of the biggest mistakes made by CODASYL and
> its successors is the gradual annihilation of the
> Identification Division. In 2015 as in 1959
> programmers love to program and hate to document.
> The standard paragraphs in the ID regularize and
> encourage internal documentation. The most useful
> paragraph was 'REMARKS' which was the first
> to go. I always judged a programs quality starting
> with the Remarks paragraph. Today, lacking an
> official paragraph wise programmers create what
> amounts to a Remarks paragraph and highlight it by
> surrounding it on fours sides with asterisks.
> Frankly that is a lot more work then just
> including the standard paragraph names
> in the personal template.