Re: Infinite Loops and Explicit Exits

From: Lueko Willms (l.willms_at_jpberlin.de)
Date: 12/01/04 

Date: 01 Dec 2004 12:01:00 GMT

. On 30.11.04
  wrote howard@brazee.net (Howard Brazee)
     on /COMP/LANG/COBOL
     in coi19j$4rq$1@peabody.colorado.edu
  about Re: Infinite Loops and Explicit Exits

r>>> Aren't 'reference notation' and 'STRING' a "quality of Cobol" ?

LW>> But these late additions to COBOL are not at all distinctive
LW>> for COBOL, rather a "me too".

HB> So?

   So what?

   I'm not sure what your "so?" asks for -- as to reference notation
(like in variable-x(startpos:length)), which is expressed in most
other languages by a funktion SUBSTRING(var, start, lenth), I do use
it the database development system which I do currently use as my main
tool, VDP. I'n sure if this particular form of SubStr() is implemented
in other langauges, too (slice of an array).

   String concatenation is also a normal thing in such programming
languages.

   For UNSTRING, though, there are not so straightforward equivalences
in other languages, but pattern matching has been around in SNOBOL for
a long time, and in REXX I have the PARSE statement, and the WORD()
function. For my VDP applications, I have written my own procedure to
parse a string into words, with the separators handed over as a
parameter.

Yours,
Lüko Willms http://www.willms-edv.de
/--------- L.WILLMS@jpberlin.de -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --

Der Mann machte sehr viel Wind. B: O nein! Wenn es noch Wind gewesen wäre, es war aber mehr ein wehendes Vacuum. -G.C.Lichtenberg

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Theodore Adorno, a prophet of data systems design
    ... Hey, goose man. ... >> especially those who cling to outdated languages. ... Buddy of mine wrote an efficient chess program in Cobol to demonstrate ... Levine the Genius Tailor says, "no problem, just hold your arm like ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Gartner on Assessing the Age of Software Languages and Tools
    ... with no mainframe COBOL at all, ... And general-purpose computers running general-purpose applications are a ... movement in general programming toward better ... But are these pockets of "old time languages" significant in a global ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Could this save COBOL?
    ... I am personally of the opinion that any languages not supporting the OO ... paradigm will be gone within 10 years, and that includes COBOL, unless it is ... OO COBOL running in the Dot NET environment could have a real chance of ... If the lifeblood of COBOL is going to be 1960s code in a mainframe ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Is there a mainframe skills shortage?
    ... That's because the author of the article is comparing it to standard SQL. ... and material around Lamdas and functional programming. ... obvious which languages were the ones to learn. ... stick to writing system software and leave applications to the COBOL ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Cobol News - Microfocus and AcuCOBOL
    ... I think they are the languages of today. ... I disagree strongly about problems for the programmer. ... It is a hard concept for COBOL people to grasp.. ... functionality comes along, it inherits what is there already and extends it. ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)