From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Subject: [COFF] COBOL.
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:06:19 +1000 (EST) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.2004141953330.1535@aneurin.horsfall.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <8884c03d-acd0-14bd-ca60-ec269e3a3812@gmail.com>
On Tue, 14 Apr 2020, Harald Arnesen wrote:
>> I have no plans to move to the US :-) To this day "ADD A TO B GIVING C
>> COMPUTATIONAL ROUNDED" still leaves me cold.
>
> No one I know (I programmed COBOL at a couple of jobs in the 80s) ever
> actually wrote that in COBOL. "COMPUTE C = A + B" is valid, and the
> "COMPUTATIONAL ROUNDED" is handled by USAGE and PICTURE clauses in the
> DATA DIVISION.
'Twas a joke circulating amongst the Computer Science lecturers at the
time (70s and all that); in fact, I think I first heard it from John Lions
himself...
> I still dabble with GNU Cobol now and then.
I am reminded of the following Buddhist koan:
And the Novice asked the Master:
Novice: Master, does EMACS have the Buddha nature?
Master: Well, I don't see why not; it bloody well has everything
else in it.
I gots lots of those things :-)
-- Dave
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-04-14 10:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-04-13 17:59 crossd
2020-04-13 18:09 `
2020-04-13 19:30 ` crossd
2020-04-13 22:22 ` krewat
2020-04-13 20:40 ` clemc
2020-04-13 21:27 ` thomas.paulsen
2020-04-13 22:24 ` dave
2020-04-13 22:28 ` lm
2020-04-13 23:58 ` clemc
2020-04-14 9:24 ` skogtun
2020-04-14 10:06 ` dave [this message]
2020-04-14 8:18 ` wobblygong
2020-04-14 16:11 ` cym224
2020-04-15 6:58 ` thomas.paulsen
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