Python and COBOL

[Ian Parker]

In article <8oed4p017r7 at news2.newsguy.com>, Alex Martelli
<alex at magenta.com> writes
>"John W. Baxter" <jwbnews at scandaroon.com> wrote in message
>news:jwbnews-250FF9.10424128082000 at news.olympus.net...
>    [snip]
>> I wrote a fair amount of COBOL (punched cards, and later glass TTY
>> punched card images), and rather liked it.
>
>My chance to write substantial Cobol (OK, with some SQL on the
>side, I'll admit) came as I was lending a hand to a development
>center trying to live with a rather-blotch 4thGL called "CSP" (for
>"Cross-System Product", I believe).  The power of Cobol (and,
>ok, some SQL on the side) was simply _awesome_ compared with
>the living hell that it was to make CSP do anything even slightly
>different from what its designers (?) had in mind...
>
>(Python, or Rexx, or C, or even 360 BAL, would have been big
>further steps forward, I suspect:-).
>
>
>Alex
>
>
>

Indeed COBOL was a strange language.  Admittedly it was far too long-
winded.  I dropped it like a hot potato when offered the chance to work
in Algol 60.  

It did have interesting concepts:  

(i) defining the I/O files in a "DIVISION" at the start of the program,  

(ii) defining variables with PICTURE clauses, e.g "999.99", which (if I
recall correctly) defined both the variable storage and display formats.
How about that for strongly typed!   

(iii) The PERFORM for calling procedures once or repetitively (which I
remember as being deeply cool).

I always thought C lacked a little in report formatting.

Regards

Ian