Worked right means what? Syntactically? Or performed exactly as you expected on input you controlled or knew what was in it? I’ve spent 40 years in ALL aspects of IT. I was an Ops manager once and used to get resumes from people who claimed to be Mainframe Computer Operators. Most didn’t know what JCL was. I wrote many programs that worked 1st try using EASYTRIEVE, SAS, REXX, CLIST, DF & SYNC SORT. Decades ago wrote some Assembler (simple) that worked 1st try. Wrote a boatload of PL/I in college. Fortran, COBOL, at employers, far more complex, that rarely worked 1st try.
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Sunday, August 22, 2021, 3:40 PM, Bob Bridges <[email protected]> wrote: Bill, I don't understand what could have pushed your buttons. For instance: BJ> Comparing a 40 line REXX/CLIST “program” to a 10,000 line IMS/COBOL program that scans a parts database is an absolute joke. But the only one making that comparison is you. (Maybe that's why you were the only one laughing :). ) Maybe this is the key: BJ> No bee in my bonnet. Just don’t like braggarts. A few of us (including me) posted "I once wrote a 30-line program that worked right the first time", and what you heard is "am I not amazing, wonderful, brilliant? Do you not all admire me?" Is that what happened? --- Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313 /* When it comes to cooking, five years ago I felt guilty "just adding water." Now I want to bang the tube against the countertop and have a five-course meal pop out. If it comes with plastic silverware and a plate that self-destructs, all the better. -Erma Bombeck */ --- On 2021-08-21 21:51, Bill Johnson wrote: > “Programming” in REXX, CLIST, and similar types of languages is hardly > programming. Real programming is hundreds or thousands of lines of COBOL, > with IMS, DB2, or CICS calls. I was pretty damn good too. Started off in > COBOL/IMS 4 decades ago. Did a little bit of COBOL/CICS and quite a bit of > COBOL/DB2 later. Try putting together the necessary code to drill down a > hierarchical database like IMS. > > --- On Saturday, August 21, 2021, 9:31 PM, Bob Bridges > <[email protected]> wrote: > This part of the thread got me thinking. How often do you write a program > that works right the first time, with no compile or execution errors? I'm > not talking about two-liners, of course, or even ten-liners; let's say 30 or > thereabouts. Please specify the language, too, since it seems to me they > vary in error-prone-ness. > > I've done it occasionally, but by "occasionally" I mean "less than one time > in twenty"; maybe much less, I'm not sure, and only once in my life when > anyone was watching. That was in PL/C; mostly nowadays I write in REXX and > VBA. > > In fact my REXXes typically start out with at least ten or fifteen lines of > boilerplate, and any VBA/Excel program likely relies on a raft of common > functions and/or objects that are part of my regular library, so when I say > "30 lines", some of those lines don't really count. > > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of > Tom Brennan > Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2021 13:41 > > ....one of my other supervisors/teachers would tell me about her application > experience. She said no matter how complex her COBOL programs were, they > would not only compile first time but would run perfectly. This of course > was due to her rigorous desk-checking which I assume took days. > > I remember thinking "that's crazy" but I just kept quiet. I'll give her a > break because that could have been at the time of card punching where such > desk-checking made far more sense. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
