Re: Which code style do you prefer the most?

On 2025-03-06, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

On 05/03/2025 22:02, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Wed, 5 Mar 2025 16:40:51 +0000, bart wrote:
 

People are forgetting that in the days of 80-character hardware,
identifiers were often limited to 6 characters or even fewer.

 
COBOL allowed for 30 from the beginning, as I recall. And PL/I allowed 31.

>
So:
>
ADD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA TO BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
GIVING CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC.
>
? A tight fit for an 80-column card I think.

>
A statement could easily span multiple cards.   Do a google search
on 'COBOL continuation line'.

The "COBOL continuation line" is the result of the ritual when the aging
king of COBOL in a given geographic region nominates his younger
successor, passing to him the deck of royal punched cards, and a
sceptre-like stick for reaching the computer room power switch that
is mounted ten feet up on the wall.

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