Re: COBOL interview tests

Howard Brazee wrote:
On Wed, 27 Dec 2006 11:00:28 -0600, LX-i <lxi0007@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Not necessarily. Granted, today I could probably write a MERGE without looking at a manual - but three weeks from now, I'd probably forget the syntax and have to look it up again. Rather than try to memorize every possible option, I instead like to dedicate a portion of my memory store to knowing *where* things are documented. That keeps me from having to memorize the manuals, leaving room for lots of 5th grade memories - even the one about the girl that wouldn't go out with me.

I'm like that with most computer languages. And most languages I am
familiar with. But CoBOL has become native to me - I could leave it
for a decade and come back without having to re-learn old stuff. Sure,
there are occasions when I need to pull out my English language
dictionary with my native English - but CoBOL isn't a big language.
(Now I would have to pull out the manual to do OO CoBOL - not my
manual though which doesn't have any of that).

That last part bring up another conflict I have - I could probably put forth the effort to learn OO COBOL, and make some small application with it. I'm sure I would learn a lot along the way. But would it benefit me past the "gee-whiz" of being able to say that I did it? (Granted, the "gee-whiz" pull is pretty strong - but I've got some other stuff to do with already-deployed applications too.)


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