A beginning beginner's question about input, output and . . .

[DonK]

On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 09:26:18 +1100, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 7:41 AM DonK <don81846 at comcast.net.removeme> wrote:
>> Hi, I'm thinking about learning Python but I'm 74 years old and will
>> very likely not ever have a programming job again. I used to program
>> in Visual Basic, C\C++, Delphi, etc. and some obscure "mainframe"
>> languages.
>
>BTW, from my experience, there's very very few languages so obscure
>that not one person on this list has heard of them :)
>
>For example, I've used REXX, which is an IBM language found on some of
>the mainframes and also on OS/2, and I'm not the only person here who
>has.
>
>ChrisA

Hi Chris,

The mainframe language that I mentioned was/is? called KwikBasic. I
don't remember if it was all one word or not. It's not to be confused
with Microsoft's QuickBasic.

KwikBasic ran on the Unix OS and was, hands down, the worst
programming experience I've ever had. It was a Y2k fix for the
reservation system of a large Fortune 500 real estate "timeshare"
company. I probably shouldn't say that their name was Trendswest.

The update had to be completed by the end of October 1998 because they
would start taking reservations for 2000 in Nov, 1998. They hired me
to manage the "reservation" part of their Y2k update in the Summer.
(YES! It was late.)

It turned out that KwikBasic was VERY much like the other versions of
basic that I had used. Including MSDOS's QuickBasic and PDS. The two
nutty things about it were that it had only 2 data types, if I
remember corectly they were called number and string.

The worst thing was that there was just one directory that contained
2,702 source files (I'll never forget that number) with names like
217h9436. There was no index to tell you what 217h9436 was, what it
did, what part of the business it pertained to . . . nothing. There
was also no notation in the files. You just had to open each one of
them, read their code to find out what they did.

Also, we had Windows computers on our desks with MS Office installed
but the nearest computer that could run Kwikbasic was their UNIX
mainframe in the main buildings about .25 to .50 miles away. We were
supposed to write code at our desk with Windows Notepad and then, on
Fridays,  the IT manager would take our code over to compile it and
would let us know of any error codes. They said they were going to buy
some expensive workstation for our office, that would run RedHat,
which they were told would then run Kwikbasic. IDunno!

It would have been impossible to do the job as the IT mgr (Mike W.)
envisioned it but I was able to write some simple MS Office code that
searched all the source code files, in just a minute or 2, for any
reference to "Date" functions. As I recall, there weren't that many.

Anyway, Mike W. was a fool that spent all day, every day, screaming
about, mostly, politics. I wound up quitting iafter less than 2 weeks.

Thanks for replying and sorry for the long message.

	Don