Re: Reviving REMARKS


john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> In a fit
> of well-intentioned foolisheness the powers that be eliminated that
> dedicated paragraph name,

What they actually did was introduce a much more general commenting
mechanism that made REMARKS and NOTE statements obsolete.

> The basic princple of COBOL beng a self
> documenting and English-like language was pretty much ignored.

Actually the point about _self_ documenting is that it doesn't need
remarks or comments.

> INSTALLATION paragraph. Only one asterisk is needed. This trick works
> on OpenCobol. I hven't tested it elsewhere.

Actually you probably don't need the asterisk at all - just put the
word REMARKS in column 12. You may find that once a comment paragraph
has been started it only stops when there is something in area A.

I started using '*' for all comments 30 years ago and don't see why you
feel the need to revert to the 60s. Next you will be adopting a
standard that requires each paragraph to start with a NOTE sentence
that comments on what the paragraph is to do. ;-)

I often put comments in programs that are designed to be extracted to
build user documentation. The parts that are to be extracted are
comments (* in 7) that are between pairs of *<html> and *</html>
comments. These comments may be anywhere including the identification
division so I will always use '*' even there.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Reviving REMARKS
    ... In a fit of well-intentioned foolisheness the powers that be eliminated that dedicated paragraph name, but left in such things as AUTHOR, INSTALLATION and so on. ... The basic princple of COBOL beng a self documenting and English-like language was pretty much ignored. ... longer do I have to pepper column 7 with *'s just to insert a REMARKS ... IDENTIFICATION DIVISION as just an anachronism to be disposed of as quickly as possible. ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Is this valid COBOL syntax?
    ... What appears to be part of the REMARKS paragraph or something ... like that is in fact part of the DATE-COMPILED paragraph. ... Is this valid COBOL syntax? ... REMARKS paragraph valid, ...
    (bit.listserv.ibm-main)
  • Re: Is this valid COBOL syntax?
    ... Note that if the program had not had any of the other optional ID DIVISION paragraphs present, simply commenting out REMARKS would not have worked. ... It is perhaps worth noting the following, from the Enterprise COBOL 4.2 Reference manual... ... DATE-COMPILED paragraph ... send email to listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ...
    (bit.listserv.ibm-main)
  • Re: A new, CORRECT evolutionary theory
    ... If you don't wish to believe it, that's okay. ... The last paragraph was quite tangential to the rest of my remarks. ... the correct evolution of life, it can help a person to deal with all ...
    (sci.med.dentistry)
  • Re: Predominant philosophy of mathematics today
    ... Bill Taylor writes: ... remarks in the paragraph above this suggest you do not ... I didn't find your suggestion interesting in that it is completely ...
    (sci.logic)