Re: The joy of FORTRAN

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.

 
  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.

--
Pete