Re: The joy of FORTRAN

On Sat, 28 Sep 2024 10:29:04 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>

On 2024-09-27, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
 

On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 17:52:04 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
 

Another thing PL/I got from COBOL is “natural” string handling.
Assign a short string to a larger any the result is automatically
blank-padded.

 
That kind of misfeature is only needed in the sad world of
non-dynamic, fixed-length strings ...

 
Which for many of us was the only world that existed at the time.
 

I think still does. You wouldn’t want to print too long a name on a
check, for instance, just because your system allows it and some literal
clerk just types in what they see.

But in these days of proportional fonts and typeset-quality output, your
output field width will be measured in some actual distance unit (e.g. mm
or points), not some number of characters.