sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) (11/20/89)
About all major programming languages have their own newsgroup, but Cobol has not. Yet is the Cobol probably the most common language used in the software industry. The reason that Cobol doesn't have a newsgroup are quite obvious. Usenet has its roots in technical environments where Cobol is little used. But times are changing. Usenet are spreading into administrative environments. And technical and administrative are getting closer to each other. Myself, an electrical engineer, had to learn some Cobol for my current project. And, undoubtedly the number of Cobol articles in comp.lang.misc are increasing. OK, it's no deluge of Cobol articles, but what about it? According the guidelines I calling for discussion now, and will call for votes (unless I'm severely discouraged) December 3rd and close the vote on Christmas Eve. Cobol is not dead, it just smells funny. -- Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
wesommer@athena.mit.edu (Bill Sommerfeld) (11/21/89)
Would this newsgroup be gatewayed with the (currently inactive) info-cobol mailing list? [ :-) ] -- Henry Spencer is so much of a | Bill Sommerfeld at MIT/Project Athena minimalist that I often forget | sommerfeld@mit.edu he's there - anonymous |
smaug@eng.umd.edu (Kurt Lidl) (11/21/89)
In article <480@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes: >About all major programming languages have their own newsgroup, >but Cobol has not. Yeah, ain't it great? >Yet is the Cobol probably the most common >language used in the software industry. The reason that Cobol >doesn't have a newsgroup are quite obvious. Usenet has its >roots in technical environments where Cobol is little used. USENET is also (at least for me) an instrument for INCREASING the level of computer technology -- not reducing it. I would hate to see the net being used as a means of saddling some person with COBOL -- when the project could and probably should be re-coded in something a little more modern. >But times are changing. Usenet are spreading into administrative >environments. And technical and administrative are getting >closer to each other. Myself, an electrical engineer, had to >learn some Cobol for my current project. And, undoubtedly >the number of Cobol articles in comp.lang.misc are increasing. >OK, it's no deluge of Cobol articles, but what about it? Had to? Or was that simply the path of least resistance? I have had to fight previous battles to have some things done correctly, even if that means re-coding entire sections of code. Spend a little time and consider the future... >According the guidelines I calling for discussion now, and >will call for votes (unless I'm severely discouraged) December >3rd and close the vote on Christmas Eve. Please don't. >Cobol is not dead, it just smells funny. Yes, an unpleasant fact of the industry. But please, don't help propogate this foolishness. >Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se -- /* Kurt J. Lidl (smaug@eng.umd.edu) | X Windows: Power Tools */ /* UUCP: uunet!eng.umd.edu!smaug | for Power Fools */
jgreely@oz.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) (11/21/89)
In article <480@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes: >About all major programming languages have their own newsgroup, >but Cobol has not. Yet is the Cobol probably the most common >language used in the software industry. As a former COBOL programmer (hey, I needed the money), I second the idea, but I think it should be named comp.lang.obsolete. But I'm not wedded to the name: comp.bugs.cobol is also acceptable. Visual aid for the humor impaired: :-) -=- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)
bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) (11/21/89)
Doesn't the inet distribution carry INFO-COBOL?
heh heh.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade | bzs@world.std.com
1330 Beacon St, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202 | {xylogics,uunet}world!bzsbarton@holston.UUCP (Barton A. Fisk) (11/22/89)
In article <480@enea.se>, sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes: > > Cobol is not dead, it just smells funny. > -- Let's face it, COBOL is alive and well in many DP shops around the world. I for one would welcome a group as such. Perhaps those who love to bash cobol would rather be saddled with RPG. At least cobol is non-proprietary. Let's give it a break and let those who are interested have a forum on the net. -- Barton A. Fisk | UUCP: {attctc,texbell}vector!holston!barton PO Box 1781 | (PSEUDO) DOMAIN: barton@holston.UUCP Lake Charles, La. 70602 | ---------------------------------------- 318-439-5984 | "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"-JC
davidbe@sco.COM (The Cat in the Hat) (11/22/89)
< warning...mild flames *and* content mixed in...no naughty words... >
news.groups's own smaug@eng.umd.edu (Kurt Lidl) said:
-In article <480@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
Erland> [ asking for a COBOL group ]
Kurt> [ insulting comments on COBOL ]
You're right Kurt. Since you don't like COBOL, and because you have no
use for it, it shouldn't be used.
Never mind all those companies that have thousands to millions of dollars
invested in COBOL programs *that work*(1). Never mind that Erland had said
that his new job required he use COBOL(2). And never mind that some people
might actually *like* COBOL.
Never mind all that. Just because you don't like the language, that's good
enough for me.
Footnotes follow:
(1) - I define programs that work as doing what they are designed to do.
Emacs is a great text editor (among other things) but a lousy
accounting package, and probably not such a hot word processor.
(2) - Talk to me about fighting your boss about "re-coding sections of code"
when your boss understands the COBOL program (s)he's asking you to
modify, but doesn't understand C. Or when you're working on a system
that doesn't have a decent C compiler (Usenet is not all Unix...).
(2a) - Talk to me about fighting your boss about "re-coding sections of code"
when you get a real job.
--
David Bedno, Systems Administrator, The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Email: davidbe@sco.COM / ..!{uunet,sun,ucbvax!ucscc,gorn}!sco!davidbe
Phone: 408-425-7222 x5123 Disclaimer: Speaking from SCO but not for SCO.
" -- they're normal. terrifyingly, appallingly normal -- like they've gone
through normal and come out the other side." - neil gaiman in _Sandman_ #11kjones@talos.uucp (Kyle Jones) (11/22/89)
The standard spiel is that you need to show sufficient interest, either by having a large mailing list or by showing a deluge of articles about the topic in another newsgroup. Or do we do that anymore? (seriously)
rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (11/23/89)
Yeah, everybody likes to flame COBOL but it's the most important language
in the commercial world so we should be nice and respect it. So what?
Does it need a newsgroup? Commercial significance doesn't mean squat; is
there anything to SAY about it? If there's a need for yet another
newsgroup, where has the discussion been hiding out so far?
Looks like just another in the spate of newsgroups proposed for the sake of
trying to get the newsgroup hierarchy to span the entire universe of human
endeavor, regardless of whether anyone has anything to say.
--
Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870
...`Just say no' to mindless dogma.popeye@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (ken.a.irwin) (11/23/89)
This maybe an improper forum but this can not go unflamed, the squimish are encouraged to hit the "n" key. In article <1989Nov21.013021.4170@eng.umd.edu>, smaug@eng.umd.edu (Kurt Lidl) writes: > In article <480@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes: > >About all major programming languages have their own newsgroup, > >but Cobol has not. > > Yeah, ain't it great? Oh I don't know, it seems kinda stupid to me to have a group dedicated to a commercialy insignificant language like Pascal and not COBOL. And it seems we have a group dedicated to BAL, and I would say that about 99% of the machines running 370 assy have a majority of thier code written in COBOL. And we also have a group for the almost-as-antique FORTRAN. And since all the chip makers tell us how great RISC technology is, why is it that COBOL, the languge that most closly matches the RISC instruction set, is so frowned upon? > >Yet is the Cobol probably the most common > >language used in the software industry. The reason that Cobol > >doesn't have a newsgroup are quite obvious. Usenet has its > >roots in technical environments where Cobol is little used. > > USENET is also (at least for me) an instrument for INCREASING > the level of computer technology -- not reducing it. I would > hate to see the net being used as a means of saddling some > person with COBOL -- when the project could and probably should > be re-coded in something a little more modern. Why on earth would you recode a basic banking or insurance packages in a "more modern" languge, like what? Maybe C? tons of record reads and writes, huge amounts of report generation in fixed fields, shitloads of whole number arithmatic, maintainable, fast? Or maybe you are one who claims how slow COBOL is, slow to code: yes, slow to compile: depends on the compiler, slow to run: only if the company who wrote the compiler is a bunch of dweebs. COBOL is english language assembly and produces fast efficient object code with source code a 6 year old could follow, don't count on it going away any time soon, it will be around long after the revised edition of K&R E++ is printed by Prentice, Hall & Webster. 1/2 :-) > >But times are changing. Usenet are spreading into administrative > >environments. And technical and administrative are getting > >closer to each other. Myself, an electrical engineer, had to > >learn some Cobol for my current project. And, undoubtedly > >the number of Cobol articles in comp.lang.misc are increasing. > >OK, it's no deluge of Cobol articles, but what about it? > > Had to? Or was that simply the path of least resistance? I have > had to fight previous battles to have some things done correctly, > even if that means re-coding entire sections of code. Spend a > little time and consider the future... Gee, I'm sure Chase Manhattan would love to hire you to recode thier gigabytes of COBOL source, and I'm sure they wouldn't mind the measly few billion it would cost them. Why don't you spend a little time and consider the present. > >According the guidelines I calling for discussion now, and > >will call for votes (unless I'm severely discouraged) December > >3rd and close the vote on Christmas Eve. > > Please don't. [...listen to this guy] > > >Cobol is not dead, it just smells funny. > > Yes, an unpleasant fact of the industry. But please, don't help > propogate this foolishness. May your bank/mortgage company/insurance company/payroll service company be the first to completly rewrite in Pascal and pad your bill to recoup the costs. COBOL is alive and well and controlling your money, and your companys money, and your governments money. If I never write another COBOL program in my life it will be too soon, but to the thousands that do, they should be represented on the net. There may or may not be the readership justification for a COBOL group at present, but this is a case where a group should be created to fill an obvious hole in the name space. "comp" groups are the most widely carried on the net and to not represent such a commercialy important language, in my opinion, is a mistake. There are plenty of groups that have almost no daily traffic but are subscribed to by large numbers of people, a place to post questions and get answers when needed, where you don't have to wade through hundreds of articles and unsubscribe because you don't have time for it. This type of group should be created, it's why many companys bother to carry this stuff, so their people can get answers to their questions. > >Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se > /* Kurt J. Lidl (smaug@eng.umd.edu) | X Windows: Power Tools */ Ken A. Irwin AT&T Bell Laboratories Indian Hill 6G410 Naperville, Illinois (708) 979-4578 ...!ihlpa!kai
allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) (11/23/89)
As quoted from <5643@holston.UUCP> by barton@holston.UUCP (Barton A. Fisk): +--------------- | In article <480@enea.se>, sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes: | > Cobol is not dead, it just smells funny. | | Let's face it, COBOL is alive and well in many DP shops around | the world. | | I for one would welcome a group as such. Perhaps those who | love to bash cobol would rather be saddled with RPG. | | At least cobol is non-proprietary. Let's give it a break and | let those who are interested have a forum on the net. +--------------- Agreed. I use COBOL as little as possible myself, but am quite aware of the massive effort required to take a working COBOL program suite and convert it to another language (having had to do so a few months ago). Besides which, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". People who think that the whole world should convert megabytes upon megabytes' worth of COBOL programs to some other language just to make *them* happy have a major misunderstanding of reality. I'm neutral on a COBOL group, but am very much AGAINST the anti-COBOL flames that greeted this Call for Discussion. ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery allbery@NCoast.ORG, BALLBERY (MCI Mail), ALLBERY (Delphi) uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu bsa@telotech.uucp *(comp.sources.misc mail to comp-sources-misc[-request]@backbone.site, please)* *Third party vote-collection service: send mail to allbery@uunet.uu.net (ONLY)* expnet.all: Experiments in *net management and organization. Mail me for info.
bret@codonics.COM (Bret Orsburn) (11/23/89)
In article <3304@cbnewsd.ATT.COM> popeye@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (ken.a.irwin) writes: >[...] And since all >the chip makers tell us how great RISC technology is, why is it that >COBOL, the languge that most closly matches the RISC instruction set, is >so frowned upon? Huh? And elsewhere in the same posting asserts: >COBOL is english language assembly [...] and again, huh? [I will not flame, I will not flame, I will not flame,...] :-> Wait! I get it! This is some gifted satirist's *impression* of a COBOL programmer! [I flamed!] :-< -- bret@codonics.com uunet!codonics!bret Bret Orsburn
barton@holston.UUCP (Barton A. Fisk) (11/25/89)
In article <1989Nov22.173505.24650@ico.isc.com>, rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: > Yeah, everybody likes to flame COBOL but it's the most important language > in the commercial world so we should be nice and respect it. So what? > Does it need a newsgroup? Commercial significance doesn't mean squat; is > there anything to SAY about it? If there's a need for yet another I'm sure that there's just as much to say about COBOL as there is about any other language. There are at least as many different Cobol's running on as many different architectures as any other compiler. How much is there to say about prolog or fourth? I'm not married to COBOL, but when I get file specs from US Govt fiscal intermediaries, they're not in pascal or modula2, they're COBOL! All I'm saying is COBOL has it's place and should have it's own newsgroup for exchange of information. -- Barton A. Fisk | UUCP: {attctc,texbell}vector!holston!barton PO Box 1781 | (PSEUDO) DOMAIN: barton@holston.UUCP Lake Charles, La. 70602 | ---------------------------------------- 318-439-5984 | "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"-JC
john@compugen. (John Beaudin) (11/25/89)
I program in cobol and woulld appreciate a question/answer forum on technical problems and suggestions for improving the language. The cobol i use (AcuCobol) already has built-in windows and a symbolic source code debugger. That's a lot more than a lot of the other languages appearing in their own newsgroups can say. IMHO, restricting news group existence to those with snob appeal is just another kind of book burning. I want comp.lang.cobol to exist and flourish.
tale@pawl.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) (11/26/89)
In <2093@compugen.> john@compugen. (John Beaudin) writes:
John> IMHO, restricting news group existence to those with snob appeal
John> is just another kind of book burning.
That's quite a lofty humble opinion you're toting around with you.
Forgetting "to those with snob appeal" for a moment, since that was
not really the motivation behind hideous book burning attrocities,
just how is not creating a newsgroup as evil as burning of books[1]?
Of the people who have spoken out against COBOL, I have not seen
anyone of them say, "It can't be discussed at all!"
John> I want comp.lang.cobol to exist and flourish.
Fine. I probably won't end of voting either way, unless you decide to
continue with these Third Reich accusations.
-
[1] If I burn my copy of Catcher in the Rye, it's my own business.
There are plenty to go around in the world. The attrocities I speak
of were the forceful entry into private homes to obtain books to burn,
and the burning of public books, which was an attempt at censorship of
the thoughts of the entire populace.
Dave
--
(setq mail '("tale@pawl.rpi.edu" "tale@ai.mit.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))jgreely@oz.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) (11/26/89)
In article <2093@compugen.> john@compugen. (John Beaudin) writes: >The cobol i use (AcuCobol) already has built-in windows and a symbolic >source code debugger. That's a lot more than a lot of the other >languages appearing in their own newsgroups can say. Is that really an important consideration for a language's presence in comp.lang.*? Nonsense (particularly when discussing completely non-standard extensions to a language, patched on in an attempt to prolong its lifetime). Personally, my COBOL experience is with the LCD variety, writing code that has to work on a system that's *almost* ANSI-74 compatible. >IMHO, restricting news group existence to those with snob appeal >is just another kind of book burning. I want comp.lang.cobol >to exist and flourish. "Snob appeal"? Forth? Clu? Rexx? Get serious! The reason there is no group for COBOL is that no one cared. There just hasn't been any overwhelming volume of COBOL-related discussion going on, probably because it's not popular among netters. In fact, the only mention of COBOL I've seen in months was "can anybody recommend a COBOL-to-C translator?". I think you're getting defensive for no reason. People may be taking the opportunity to put down COBOL, but that doesn't mean they're trying to force it off the net. A few idle netters taking potshots at a newsgroup proposal is not book burning. Relax, switch to decaf, and if that doesn't work, take it to alt.conspiracy. (ps: your address is bogus. Tell your news administrator to fix it) -=- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)
juliar@hpcll17.HP.COM (Julia Rodriguez) (11/28/89)
There is a lot of new language development going on for COBOL. I am a member of X3J4, the committee responsible for development of the ANSI/ISO standard for COBOL. The committee completed a full revision of the standard in 1985. It completed an addendum to add intrinsic functions to the standard this year. In addition, the committee has approved work items for 3 more addenda: a corrections addendum fixing minor errors introduced by the 1985 standard, an addendum adding functionality for internationalization, and one for Forms Interface Management. The committee has just begun work on the next full revision of the standard. The current schedule contains a completion date of 1999, but I think that the standard won't be out until 200x. I expect that COBOL will be alive and well at that time. Julia Rodriguez
wally@pallas.UUCP (Wally Hartshorn) (11/29/89)
Sure, why not? Especially now that ANSI COBOL '85 is starting to get some widespread use (such as in the form of IBM's COBOL II), COBOL is almost turning into a real language. Although C is my language of choice, I get my $$$ by programming in COBOL all day, so it would be nice to have someplace to complain about it. :-) I've also bumped into the occassional bug or unexpected behavior during the switch to COBOL II, so a COBOL newsgroup would give us a good place to distribute this type of info. Best of all, we don't have to argue over the name! :-) Wally (uunet!pallas!wally or wally@athenanet.com)
sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) (12/04/89)
OK, the discussion period is over, and I'm about to issue the call for votes. Some closing comments from my part. There have been three sorts of comments: 1) In favour. 2) Questioning. Is there traffic enough to justify the group? 3) Negative. Cobol is evil. There have been several articles and some personal mail too in the first group, including a coinciding proposal to form alt.cobol. They are many enough to encourage me to go on and issue a call for votes. We have, thankfully, not seen much of category 3. I did actually receive a mail from a guy who thought that Cobol was evil and that he would vote no because of that. (Bill Thacker, what do you think of that?) Lucky for him and I don't share that attitude. If I had, I would rmgroup comp.lang.c straight away. So the second category which I have said things like "he might get the votes, but will he get the traffic?" This is a very valid point. Now, I have seen sufficiently many Cobol articles to believe there will be some traffic, but I would be lying if I said that I predicted 500 articles a month. Another issue that has been questioned is that being the most commonly used language does not justify a newsgroup. What justifies is that someone wants to talk about it. Again, this is a very valid point. Some of the supporters have intimated that they will post. The common problem is of course that the vote (or survey) gives an indication on how many that will read the group, not on how many that will post, and how much. Nevertheless, if comp.lang.cobol only gets 5 articles/month the group may still be worthwhile to those working with Cobol. As it is today, when they (we) run into a problem they have to go comp.lang.misc, which might be a peaceful place. It might also be the battlefield for a language war with tons of articles. In that situation comp.lang.cobol would be a good place to ask your question in without drowning in the rest. So, I will go for it. If you think traffic etc is too low, you can always vote no. -- Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
rick@pavlov.tmc.edu (Richard H. Miller) (12/05/89)
I cannot see the need for a comp.lang.cobol at this time. There has been no
traffic on any of the .misc groups (although there was a thread involving
COBOL in comp.arch). I still feel that a new newsgroup is not warrented until
traffic in an existing group or one of the .misc groups.
BTW, I am in an MIS shop so COBOL is used extensively. I am not anti-COBOL
Richard H. Miller Email: rick@bcm.tmc.edu
Asst. Dir. for Technical Support Voice: (713)798-3532
Baylor College of Medicine US Mail: One Baylor Plaza, 302H
Houston, Texas 77030