On Tuesday 26 August 2003 04:35 am, Alex Malinovich wrote: > I've, unfortunately, been forced into taking a COBOL class as > a requirement for getting my BS. (And that's just what it is, > a load of BS...) What's worse is that I can't seem to find > any Free COBOL tools. 'apt-cache search cobol' returns 3 > hits, all of which are documentation utilities. Any > suggestions? Or am I going to be stuck using school PC's > loaded with Windows and more proprietary software than you > can shake a warez-kiddie at?
You didn't say what your major is, so I am assuming it is CS. It is worth studying many languages, including those that do not seem to apply to your present interests. You are not expected to like them all. COBOL should be studied for several reasons. First, it uses a syntax that is more conversational than other languages. Also, it is has been and still is of significant historical interest. By learning it, and learning its style, you learn programming techniques that you would probably not be exposed to otherwise. Too many CS programs today put too much emphasis on a single style of program development, usually "object oriented". You can't really know what that is, or what its benefits are, until you contrast it against the others. Windows, too, has its place. Too many CS schools use MS-Windows exclusively. In my mind, this destroys their credibility. As much as I like GNU, Linux, free software,.. I must admit that an environment that is 100% GNU, Linux, free also is of limited credibility. You see only one side. A truly good program will use a mix of systems. A few years ago I taught a senior CS course "comparitive programming languages". There were assignments in FORTRAN, AWK, Prolog, and Lisp. We also spent some time on FORTH, and a little (too little) on COBOL. If I ever do that course again, there will be assignments in COBOL and FORTH. The only reason there wasn't is that I couldn't find appropriate free software in time. I do know where to find them now. In this course, it wasn't enough to just get a program working in each of these languages. I required them to be in the style of the language. Although you can make believe they are all C, I didn't accept that. I even enforced a "no assignment statement" rule in Lisp. FORTRAN here meant FORTRAN-IV, that is the 1966 version, that didn't have block if, so they had to use goto's. So, stop griping about COBOL. Do your best. Learn why it is the way it is, and how it influenced the more modern languages. Learn the style, so when someone gives you a COBOL-style program in C++, you will understand it. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
