Re: subroutines are bug factories was: Classic Traps -- I need yourinput!

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Jim Wiant <Jim.Wiant@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

COBOL is the worst language?

The most widely used running code in the world?

You don't know COBOL very well, do you?

It's ability to perform THRU paragraphs (not RPG),
the memory organization which is unparalleled (better than DS),
the declaratives that provide global file handling methods long before
RPG did,
a built in sort (still waiting for that in RPG)
copy replacing (nope - haven't got that either in RPG)
multiple dimensional arrays ( don't know what to do with a
multi-dimensional array? How above sales history - 2yr, last year, this
year. 1 Dimension, the 2yr, last year or this year. 2nd Dimension, the
month. 3rd dimension, gross vs. net. I've never seen a better way to
list, calculate and report on such a matrix than COBOL. In RPG you would
have to do some nice DS 'tricks' to do the same thing - which would be
enigmatic to most people looking at the code. In my case, I would just
"Move Amount(Year,Month,Gross) to Print-Amount". Can't get more clear
than that).... In RPG - Overlay? Like DS combinations with memory
pointers? Not as clear to me.)

segmented overlays that can control what segments are permanent in
memory and which ones are swapped on need (hmm, haven't studied that
idea in RPG yet)


Don't trash the tool because you don't understand it.

I built a POS system with 250,000 lines of code into a 512K PC using
COBOL and segmented overlays. It couldn't have been done in any other
language given the project definitions and time. It is still used by the
company as far as I know.

Best tool for the best job.

After all, it all translates to machine code. Therefore, if you know the
tool well enough you in fact control the machine code. Any language can
be made to produce ugly code if you don't know what you're doing - and
can product elegant code if you do.

I think either your experiences or your outlook are limited (perhaps
both). Stop working/reciting modern "everything is better now days"
dogma. It narrows your view and you're missing good solutions because
they aren't 'stylish' anymore in your opinion.

I appreciate the fact based reply. I spent 3 months reworking a legacy COBOL
application recently. I had a lot of time to reflect on why the code I was
working on was so hard to follow and modify. It was out of that morass of
crap code that I developed my theory of the virtue of parameters and the
evil of the global variable.

-Steve