Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
And since the original COBOL standard numeric format was BCD, PIC not
only defined output layout, but also internal storage needed by numerics
and string data types.
Unless you said USAGE IS COMPUTATIONAL, which left the compiler
free to pick a more efficient st
r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram):
> struct example
> { PIC<5,X<15>> last_name;
> PIC<88,VALUE<1,3,5,7,9>> odd_numbers; }
>
> . The above assumes appropriate definitions for »VALUE« (as a
> variadic template) »PIC«, and »X«. Only a C++ expert would be able
> to provide thes
Gregory Ewing :
> Steve D'Aprano wrote:
>
>> If PIC is so great, why do no other languages have it?
>
> Something akin to it has turned up in other places, although usually
> in the guise of an output formatting facility rather than a way of
> describing how data is stored internally. For example,
Ian Kelly wrote:
Yikes. I never took the time to learn COBOL, but that almost sounds
like something that you'd find in an esoteric language like INTERCAL.
COBOL has other fun stuff like that, too. For example, the
destination of a GOTO statement can be changed from elsewhere
in the program:
ht
Steve D'Aprano wrote:
If PIC is so great, why do no other languages have it?
Something akin to it has turned up in other places, although
usually in the guise of an output formatting facility rather
than a way of describing how data is stored internally.
For example, the PRINT USING found in s
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:
> >
> > D
On Fri, 14 Apr 2017 04:09 am, Rustom Mody wrote:
> On Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 11:14:15 PM UTC+5:30, Steve D'Aprano wrote:
>> Meyer's "Considered Harmful Essays Considered Harmful" essay is
>> hypocritical junk, and should be considered harmful.
>
> Your view.
Well duh :-)
> Here's an alter
On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 12:51 PM, Nathan Ernst wrote:
> Thank you for that Alan Kay quote. Brightened up my day. Since you also
> mentioned COBOL, and this is a thread about "goto", reminded me of the
> single most abhorrent thing I ever saw in COBOL (I had to convert a single
> COBOL batch proces
Thank you for that Alan Kay quote. Brightened up my day. Since you also
mentioned COBOL, and this is a thread about "goto", reminded me of the
single most abhorrent thing I ever saw in COBOL (I had to convert a single
COBOL batch process to ASP.Net as an intern back in 2003-4). "MOVE NEXT
SENTENCE"
On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 2:09 PM, Rustom Mody wrote:
> Or consider(!) Alan Kay's statement: "Arrogance in computer science is
> measured
> in nanodijktras"
Completely unrelated but it reminded me about this bon mot about Niklaus Wirth:
Europeans tend to pronounce his name properly, as Nih-klaus
On Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 11:14:15 PM UTC+5:30, Steve D'Aprano wrote:
> Meyer's "Considered Harmful Essays Considered Harmful" essay is hypocritical
> junk, and should be considered harmful.
Your view.
Here's an alternative.
[Sorry its a vague memory of something I read more than a decade ago
On Wed, 12 Apr 2017 10:44 am, Nathan Ernst wrote:
> goto is a misunderstood and much misaligned creature. It is a very useful
> feature, but like nearly any programming construct can be abused.
Indeed. The problem is that it is abused far more often than it is used
correctly -- or at least it was
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