Re: The joy of FORTRAN

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.