Re: TYPEDEF and RENAMES

In article <50l73jF1gnqnuU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Pete Dashwood <dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

It's a funny thing, in forty years of writing COBOL all around the world I
have never seen a 66 RENAMES used in a production program.

I mentioned, in another posting, an aesthetic opposition to the 66... I
saw it in Prod once, implemented by a fellow who was combining
job-security via idiosyncratic knowledge with 'Gee, Mom, I'm a
Programmer!' coding.

[snip]

Do you really think that COBOL programmers should be assessing how many
characters they will type with various approaches, and that this should be a
serious consideration when developing application code?

It's fine for ivory tower theorising; on the shop floor all that matters is
getting a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

My clients pay me for doing the latter, Mr Dashwood, and it is a matter of
duty and honor for me to do my best to supply them with what they are
paying me for... and, at times, *just* a little bit more. My mentioning
this, in another posting, caused... someone to compare me with a
practioner of what is considered, in many times and places, a
less-than-honorable profession.

The money, as mentioned there, is green and has pictures of dead
Presidents on it.

My experience has been that ANYTHING which requires me to change my focus
from the specific problem at hand, is counter productive.

How interesting... I've found more than once that stepping back from a
situation, looking at it from another angle or 'changing my focus' on it
allows me to come up with a solution which others have called
'superior'... I may have mentioned that, somewhere, a while back...
ahhhhh, there it is, from
<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.software.year-2000/msg/38ce9ca983af8cb7?dmode=source>

--begin quoted text:

I was once asked to put together some routines to calculate valid
Business Days... across different countries. I said 'Hmmmm, how
interesting... I think I'll head out for a smoke' and out I went. I sat
next to George Washington's statue (this was on Wall St) and I had *two*
smokes... I then went back, pounded on my keyboard, printed out some...
stuff and walked into the project leader's office for the following
interchange:

Me: 'Here's the print-outs, the source is in (libname)... give it to
Jimmy and see if he can break my code in testing it.'

PL: "oh... we gave that to Bob to do because you didn't get Right To
It."

Me: "Hmmmm, of *course* I did not get Right To It, I had to *think*...
so I went out for a smoke. Tell me... is Bob ready for testing yet?"

PL: "Ummmm.... no."

Me: "Maybe he should have stepped out for a smoke, too."

--end quoted text

[snip]

People who are still using COBOL need to stay focused on problem solution,
not assessing how many key depressions they must make in order to cut a
solution.

In my experience, Mr Dashwood, people who are doing things which require
what many call 'thinking' find problem solutions in unexpected places...
I've been surprised what useful things have come to my mind while I take
my morning shower.

DD

.

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