On Friday, April 14, 2017 at 7:03:24 AM UTC+5:30, Steve D'Aprano wrote: > On Fri, 14 Apr 2017 04:09 am, Rustom Mody wrote:
> > [Sorry its a vague memory of something I read more than a decade ago that > > [I cant > > trace again] > > Some unknown Cobol programmer talking about Dijkstra: > > > > Dijkstra used his enormous prestige to destroy Cobol. > > We lost a great deal > > What did he gain? > > Ok so Cobol's control constructs are below par > > But do any of its modern successors have its data-describing properties? > > [the PIC clause] > > If PIC is so great, why do no other languages have it? > > That's a serious question, not a rhetorical question. Dunno enough about Cobol and that ecosystem to make a useful comment However your question is really two: 1. Whats good about Cobol's PIC? 2. Why dont other languages have it/that benefit? 1st as I said I dont feel qualified to answer 2nd is ridiculous. Because of collective stupidity: - Species go extinct - Garbage fills the oceans - Fukushima fallout reaches Canada - And in general good, valuable things die out > > "Imminent Death Of Cobol Predicted. Again." > > When the sun finally expands into a supergiant in five billion years, > destroying the earth, the last survivors to die will be COBOL-programming > cockroaches and Keith Richards. > > Maybe that's a response to similar violent, unnecessary barbs from > > Dijkstra? > > "Violent"? > > Are you one of those people who think that calling a person an idiot is > morally indistinguishable from beating them into a coma? > > "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but that's nothing to the harm > caused by a few mean words." You are treating violence as literal physical violence. Thats backwards. Ultimately all violence is moral Else an orthopaedic sawing off a knee to replace or a dentist yanking out a molar would be felons -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
