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From: The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: TeX and Pascal [was Re: The joy of FORTRAN]
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2024 11:34:39 +0100
Organization: A little, after lunch
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On 02/10/2024 01:06, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2024-10-01, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> That’s one of the things I dislike about C. It can obfuscate a simple
>> operation like that. Maybe in the days to 10CPS TTYs terseness had it’s
>> usefulness, but it’s been long since time when it’s been better to write a
>> bit more in the interest of readability.
> 
> "My language is so readable that comments aren't necessary!"
> 
And that is the rub. By the time you have commented the terse statement 
you might as well have written the longer self explanatory one...

> And, of course, COBOL could never have been described as terse.
> 
COBOL was something that could be taught to relative numpties. Grace 
designed it that way on purpose. Remember she was a military girl, and 
had to deal with matelots and other simian life.

And the COBOL programmer was expected to be given a spec saying 'for 
every employee, get his hours worked and multiply by his salary rate and 
put it in his pay packet'


-- 
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, 
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
― Groucho Marx