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From: Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: The joy of FORTRAN
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2025 12:42:56 -0700
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c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
> On 2/27/25 2:43 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2025-02-26, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 2/25/25 2:33 PM, vjp2.at@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> I went from DEC20 FORTRAN to pdp11 Basic (it had matrix math) to DEC SAIL
>>>>> (Algol) to Pascal to C to Python
>>>> 
>>>> Sounds familiar ... though 'C' became available on
>>>> the PDP-11s (was writ on them). Still pref Pascal
>>>> over Python where possible.
>>>> 
>>>>> Assembler and COBOL were needed but avoided
>>>> 
>>>> Better ASM than COBOL  :-)
>>> 
>>> Depends on what you want to do. Assembler is a lot more fun,
>>> but I wouldn’t want to write a payroll system in it.
>> 
>> Wrote 'em, maintained 'em.  They're hell in any language.
>> 
>> Having said that, I really enjoyed working in assembly language,
>> for the privilege of not having some snooty compiler slap your
>> wrist and say you needed a page of code to do something you could
>> do in a few lines of assembly code.
>> 
>>>> ASM can give you kind of a buzz, makes you one
>>>> with the machine.
>>>> 
>>>> Alas if I'd learned more COBOL then I could have
>>>> had a lucrative retirement income supp maintaining
>>>> all those old biz/ops code. Still LOTS of it in
>>>> use and it's too expensive now to replace. If it
>>>> works you hang on to it with a death grip.
>>> 
>>> It’s not just COBOL any more, it’s all COBOL/CICS/DB2. Same with PL/I.
>> 
>> My COBOL days didn't involve any database stuff.  Mind you, I've
>> managed to avoid any sort of DBMS for my entire career.  However,
>> I did do enough work with Univac's equivalent of CICS (in both
>> COBOL and assembly language) to be glad to be done with it.
> 
>   We ADMIT - COBOL SUCKED.
> 
>   The "All purpose business language" was just
>   HORRIBLE to work with.
> 
>   I've done some COBOL - but under 100 lines.
>   Did NOT love it.
> 
>   On the flip, a HUGE volume of biz/gov stuff
>   that STILL WORKS was writ in COBOL during
>   the 60s. It was good, it worked, it STILL
>   works. Those 60s nerds were GOOD.
> 
>   Oh, for Linux, some COBOL development
>   environments - including 'IDE' - are to
>   be had. It's NOT a dead language - just
>   'less popular' than it used to be.
> 
>   If you ARE a COBOL expert - there's LOTS
>   of money to be made. Replacing that COBOL
>   is now TOO EXPENSIVE ... so maint has become
>   a Big Thing.
> 

These days there is no “popular” language, or maybe there are so many that
none predominates. FORTRAN/COBOL used to be the universal languages, then C
took the crown, but now it’s hard to say.

-- 
Pete