sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) (01/02/90)
The vote for comp.lang.cobol is over. It will not be created for two reasons: - Too little interest, only 95 persons voted in favour, so even with no NO votes, I wouldn't have got the required 100 vote majority. - Too strong opposition, 54 votes were against, which means that also the other criterion, at least 2/3 of the votes in favour, wasn't met. Since the group failed, I will not waste bandwidth with posting the voters. I haven't checked for duplicates and other misses, but with the clear result, there's no need too. And, don't write to me get a list of voters, I will delete the mailboxes just when I've written this article. There was a suggestion to form alt.cobol. Some of the YES voters seemed to be quite anxious in having a Cobol group, so there might be an idea to pursue that idea. I will not create it, though. I wasn't so surprised by the low interest, possibly I had expected to get some more votes. What was news to me was the strong opposition. Most voters just gave a YES or a NO (which I appreciate, saves disk space) so I can only guess, but somehow I feel that there were two reasons: - No traffic justifying the group. - Cobol is a ugly language and shouldn't be encouraged with a newsgroup. While I have no problem with the first argument, the other sentiment makes me a little puzzled. First of all the argument seems slightly invalid. In those terms, comp.lang.cobol has a precedent in comp.lang.c, so what's the issue? Second, and more important, the quality of the language has of course nothing to do with whether it should have a newsgroup. Anyway, that is of no interest now. Unless someone create alt.cobol, Cobol postings has to continue to go to comp.lang.misc. Finally, thanks to everyone who voted. -- Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se Unix is a virus.
mitchell@community-chest.uucp (George Mitchell) (01/05/90)
One reason for the apparent lack of interest may have been difficulty in
mailers reaching you. My vote (and an attempted reply to this article) were
returned as undeliverable.
----- Transcript of session follows -----
>>> RCPT To:<sommar@enea.se>
<<< 554 <sommar@enea.se>... Unknown domain se or host enea
554 sommar@enea.se... Service unavailable
/s/ George vmail: 703/883-6029
email: mitchell@community-chest.mitre.org [alt: gmitchel@mitre.arpa]
snail: GB Mitchell, MITRE, MS Z676, 7525 Colshire Dr, McLean, VA 22102" Maynard) (01/06/90)
In article <604@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes: >The vote for comp.lang.cobol is over. It will not be created for >two reasons: >- Too little interest, only 95 persons voted in favour, so even with > no NO votes, I wouldn't have got the required 100 vote majority. >- Too strong opposition, 54 votes were against, which means that > also the other criterion, at least 2/3 of the votes in favour, > wasn't met. >There was a suggestion to form alt.cobol. Some of the YES voters >seemed to be quite anxious in having a Cobol group, so there might >be an idea to pursue that idea. I will not create it, though. Unless I get overwhelming objections, I will create the group next Wednesday, 10 January 1990. I feel there is clearly enough interest in discussing COBOL to warrant an alt group. In addition, perhaps the group will have enough traffic to show that comp.lang.cobol is needed. Objections of the form "COBOL sucks, don't encourage it with a newsgroup" will be summarily ignored. I happen to feel the same way about C at times. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jay@splut.conmicro.com (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity. {attctc,bellcore}!texbell!splut!jay +---------------------------------------- "There is no doubt I should be tarred and feathered." - Richard Sexton
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (01/09/90)
In article <9L=:6A+@splut.conmicro.com> jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes: | Unless I get overwhelming objections, I will create the group next | Wednesday, 10 January 1990. COBOL is the revenge of some witch burned in Salem, or a communist plot, the work of the devil, or a secret plan by space creatures. COCOL is a loathsome reciprocal of APL, the verbosity of one heading for zero as the other passes infinity. It's the only language in which "hello world" is longer in source than in executable, even after loading 47 libraries and runtime features. The above is not an objection, just an opinion. Create it. See if I care. I'll even carry it here and force people to read it before they can subscribe to alt.sex. -- bill davidsen - sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX davidsen@sixhub.uucp ...!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen "Getting old is bad, but it beats the hell out of the alternative" -anon
kebera@alzabo.uucp (Krishna E. Bera) (01/10/90)
jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes: >In article <604@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes: >>The vote for comp.lang.cobol is over. It will not be created for >>[...] >Unless I get overwhelming objections, I will create the group next >Wednesday, 10 January 1990. I feel there is clearly enough interest in >discussing COBOL to warrant an alt group. In addition, perhaps the group >will have enough traffic to show that comp.lang.cobol is needed. Why don't you use comp.lang.misc and put the word COBOL in your articles' Subject line? I thought comp.lang.misc was intended for discussion of languages that didn't have enough traffic or support for their own newsgroup. >Objections of the form "COBOL sucks, don't encourage it with a >newsgroup" will be summarily ignored. I happen to feel the same way >about C at times. Agreed. Also, COBOL articles should be ignored by those not interested. -- Krishna E. Bera "Programmer on the loose" Voice: (613) 238-4101
juliar@hpcll17.HP.COM (Julia Rodriguez) (01/10/90)
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP Wm E. Davidsen Jr at *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY writes: > It's the only language in which "hello > world" is longer in source than in executable, even after loading 47 > libraries and runtime features. Here is the source for "hello world" using 1985 standard COBOL. identification division. program-id. hi-mom. procedure division. display "hi mom". Not so bad. Julia Rodriguez
perand@nada.kth.se (Per Andersson) (01/11/90)
In article <85497@linus.UUCP> gmitchel@mitre.org (George Mitchell) writes: >One reason for the apparent lack of interest may have been difficulty in >mailers reaching you. My vote (and an attempted reply to this article) were >returned as undeliverable. > ----- Transcript of session follows ----- >>>> RCPT To:<sommar@enea.se> ><<< 554 <sommar@enea.se>... Unknown domain se or host enea >554 sommar@enea.se... Service unavailable Just now I asked the nameserver answering at mitre.org, and it returned just what it should, a MX record pointing to the swedish backbone sunic.sunet.se. It would seem your mailer or mailer config is broken somehow. You can of course send to sommar%enea.se@uunet.uu.net or any other machine knowing the world. Greetings, Per -- --- Per Andersson Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden perand@admin.kth.se, @nada.kth.se
levy@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (Daniel R. Levy) (01/11/90)
In article <390@sixhub.UUCP>, davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) writes: > COBOL is the revenge of some witch burned in Salem ... > the work of the devil ... I KNEW IT! Even the very name is satanic, deriving from the German _kobold_ ("goblin"). # ## ### # # # ##### # # # ### # # ## -- Daniel R. Levy >>> God: just say "yes" <<< AT&T Bell Laboratories UNIX(R) mail: att!ttbcad!levy, att!cbnewsc!levy 5555 West Touhy Avenue Any opinions expressed in the message above are Skokie, Illinois 60077 mine, and not necessarily AT&T's.
charlie@milton.acs.washington.edu (Charles Geyer) (01/13/90)
In article <1810005@hpcll17.HP.COM> juliar@hpcll17.HP.COM (Julia Rodriguez) writes: > Here is the source for "hello world" using 1985 standard COBOL. > > identification division. > program-id. hi-mom. > procedure division. > display "hi mom". > > Not so bad. What? Ugh! What trash!! It should look simple, pure, and clean, like this #include <stdio.h> main() { if ( printf("Hello world.\n") == EOF ) { exit(1); } else { exit(0); } }
paul@deadpup.UUCP (paul) (01/14/90)
In article <1372@milton.acs.washington.edu>, charlie@milton.acs.washington.edu (Charles Geyer) writes: > > It should look simple, pure, and clean, like > this > > #include <stdio.h> > main() > { > if ( printf("Hello world.\n") == EOF ) { > exit(1); > } else { > exit(0); > } > } No, no, no! Simple, pure, and clean is: #include <stdio.h> main() { return(printf("Hello world.\n") == EOF); } or better yet, use puts(3). :-) Paul J. Mech oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU!deadpup!paul uiucuxc!oucs!oucsace!deadpup!paul { CAUTION: some reply generated paths end on oucsace and are lost. }
martens@golf.cis.ohio-state.edu (Jeff Martens) (01/14/90)
In article <9L=:6A+@splut.conmicro.com> jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes: >Objections of the form "COBOL sucks, don't encourage it with a >newsgroup" will be summarily ignored. I happen to feel the same way >about C at times. If it weren't for CLU, a safe rule of thumb would be to avoid any language beginning with a 'c'. -=- -- Jeff (martens@cis.ohio-state.edu) Dan Quayle, space science advocate, on Mars: "We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."