In comp.os.linux.misc The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 05/09/2021 07:14, SixOverFive wrote:
>> On 9/3/21 8:18 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, 03 Sep 2021 14:11:42 -0400
>>>>> J. Clarke <
jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> and that idiot insisted that his students use
>>>>>> cards because that's what they'd be working with in the real world.
>>>>>
>>>>> Reminds me of the A level computer science course I wished I hadn't
>>>>> taken - the year before it had been all about machine architecture,
>>>>> assembly language programming, data structures and algorithms, fun
>>>>> stuff.
>>>>> But I wasn't allowed to take it that year (because I was taking my O
>>>>> levels) I had to wait and take it the following year and so the
>>>>> course I
>>>>> got to take was COBOL, systems analysis and data validation and not
>>>>> what I
>>>>> had been looking forward to at all. But it was "what we'd be working
>>>>> with
>>>>> in the real world" or so I was told when I moaned about the change.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> COBOL programmers are still in demand, apparently.
>>>
>>> They are. Unfortunately these days to get a job you have to move to
>>> India and be willing to work for an Indian wage. It's a _good_ Indian
>>> wage mind you, I understand you can live comfortably on it, but it's
>>> below US minimum.
>>
>> Know a guy who got a job fairly recently at a govt
>> op ... one requirement was that he learn COBOL because
>> they'd heavily invested in *perfect* COBOL apps way
>> back in the day and would not, could not afford to,
>> have them re-written in anything else. Important
>> customized stuff like payrolls, scheduling ...
>>
>> COBOL was a wonder-language back in the day, perfect for
>> all kinds of biz apps and (sort of) self-documenting
>> because of the quasi-natural-language code. Its "PIC"
>> statement was great, could do everything printf() can
>> do, help you out with format conversions and forms.
>> It was assumed you were using TTY terminals and serial
>> ASCII printers. There ARE a couple of COBOL development
>> tools for Linux ... one, I think, will even set up
>> tinted columns for the older, more anal, COBOL versions
>> where you had to put certain codes in EXACTLY the
>> right columns. DID make the compilers simpler ...
>>
>
>
> COBOL was and is a damned good language for commercial programming: It
> enforces a discipline on coding and can be used on machines with
> extremely low RAM. It is extremely *efficient* in execution (though
ROTFL, certainly *not* the IBM compilers. I had a habit of looking at
the generated code -- it was *horrible*. It was so bad that a company
called Capex wrote an optimizer for it. It greatly improved the
efficiency of the programs.
Jerry