Thus spake Ron Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > On Wed, 2003-08-27 at 17:34, Paul M Foster wrote: > > On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 01:15:13AM -0500, Michael Heironimus wrote: > > > > > On Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 11:57:27PM -0400, Al Davis wrote: > > > > Learn the style, so when someone gives you a COBOL-style > > > > program in C++, you will understand it. > > > > > > Do not underestimate the value of this. You can take a COBOL programmer > > > and teach him C/C++/Java (or whatever popular language), and he'll pick > > > up the syntax just fine. And as soon as you tell him to write something > > > he'll write code that looks EXACTLY like COBOL in C/C++/Java syntax. It > > > will be unreadable, unmaintainable, and hopelessly inefficient, but > > > nobody will ever have time for the rewrite it desperately needs. > > > > I've heard about this before, but I don't think I've ever seen it. > > Someday I'd like to see some "COBOL-like" code written in C. > > Instead of lots of small functions and a minimum of global variables, > the classic code from a "bad COBOL programmer forced to write C" > would have large main(), very few other functions, and all global > variables.
Which no doubt applied to the first few program I wrote in B (the first HLL I used after 6 years of COBOL and assembler), but reading other people's code is an excellent education. Just because somebody of necessity used COBOL first does not make them a bad person. -- |Deryk Barker, Computer Science Dept. | Music does not have to be understood| |Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada| It has to be listened to. | |email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | |phone: +1 250 370 4452 | Hermann Scherchen. | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
