[Anonymouse]

Using LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO - I'd forgotten. Yes, I remember now, I could have done that. Should have - stating IS GREATER THAN would've been completely unambiguous and I couldn't have got it wrong - or if I somehow had, I'd have seen it straight away.

1989. 36+ years ago. I still can't believe that some of you young 'uns - ooh, shades of Rimmer, I cannot believe I just said that! - weren't even around back then.
I miss those days.

Originally Posted by Hugh

No, it wasn’t - it was intended for COBOL Programmers*, who in the 70s and 80s wrote most of the World’s business Systems in it (and you’d be amazed how many Legacy Systems are still running on it).

I was a coder in the 80’s and early 90s, using Mainframe Assembler, COBOL, RPG2, and SQL - never saw a Manager writing code (although they would sometimes give advice, if they were ex-coders).

Oops, my bad. I should've said business-oriented users. And no, I wouldn't be amazed, or even surprised; I studied programming, data processing and business applications at HND level. The powers that be really want to get rid of COBOL as an outmoded language, and admittedly the new ones are much better, but the simple truth is that without some drastic and unimaginable upgrade, to somehow do it all at once, they can't. It's too deeply embedded, with billions of lines of code, in society-critical applications such as the stock market, which has to keep running 24/7/365 even when trading is closed for the day - because, of course, there are business users all over the world in multiple time zones (even, if the country's big enough, in the same country, e.g. the States). Business runs 24/7/365, so these COBOL programs have to as well.
Unless they create a parallel system and gradually change over to it...which they won't be able to afford to do. Not until we mine Psyche, at any rate.
Which, in a classic Catch-22, we won't be able to afford to do until we get the IT systems sorted out.

"Is Orr crazy?"
"He sure is."
"Can you ground him?"
"I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule."
"Then why doesn't he ask you to?"
"Because he's crazy, He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."
"That's all he has to do to get grounded? Just ask?"
"That's it."
"Then you can ground him?"
"No. Then I cannot ground him."
"AAAAARRRGGGHHH!"

- Catch-22, the excellent movie

No, everything is not done in the modern languages, that's quite true. They just wish it was. Bit like Brian Arthur, who confidently declared he was going to bring economics into the 20th Century, only for his old mentor to ask sadly, "Don't you think you should bring it into the 19th Century first?"

Hell, I once had a program crash on me at a workplace - and I immediately said to my supervisor, "That's what you get for relying on COBOL."
"Eh?"
"That's what it's written in."
"How do you know?!"
Answer: the error message I got started with %COB-F-, that's why, i.e. a fatal COBOL error. On the VAX, error messages were - still are? - in the format:

%PROGRAM-SEVERITY-ABBREVIATION followed by an explanation, e.g.:

%COB-F-COMPERR, COBOL compiler error - check program syntax

or

%DCL-W-ACCESSREST, access restricted - consult your system operator

SEVERITY was F, S, W or I (Fatal, Severe, Warning, Informational). Can't remember what the error message was, but I know a COBOL core dump when I see it. <ironic>I saw too many of them in my 2 years studying COBOL on my HND, especially the 2nd year. </ironic> Trust me, it does not lend itself to what's known as flat code. I hated that in year 2. That plus FMS (Forms Management System) on the VAX...uuurrggghhhh.
I never used ORACLE on my HND course; that came to the VAX in 1991 or thereabouts, and I was converting my HND to a B.Sc. Whenever two or more ORACLE users were logged on, my PASCAL compilation time went from blink-and-you'll-miss-it to several minutes. In a race between a VAX running ORACLE and a continent, I was sure the continent would win. You wouldn't believe the I/O and CPU time ORACLE used.
Is this still true today? <sarcasm>Wouldn't be surprised.</sarcasm>

I studied ways of modernising systems, such as parallel running...and the usual method of shoehorning a new system into where the old one was. They cannot do that on a large scale; the task is too large, and the programs too critical. Some systems are so critical that people could die if the new ones don't work...which they never do. Hence they must keep going.

Imagine if Tron was true. Picture it: two old programs, as old as Dumont if not older, taking a break for a few hundred micro-cycles (i.e. overnight, after trading has closed for the day):

"Hey, you know the Users can't do without us?"
"Yeah. Pete-One says they want to replace me with some new flashy program, but they can't. I'm old, even outmoded, but still critical."
"Me, too. I've been running nonstop for trillions of micro-cycles - I think the Users call it 'years', or something - but they still depend on me. Got at least a million man-years - is that right, Tron? (a nod) - man-years invested in us."
"All hail the Users, though."
"Yeah. All hail the Users."



"Look, you know how it is. You just keep doin' what you're told to, even if it seems crazy, an' you hope like hell your User knows what's goin' on. Right?"
"Well, that's how it is for programs, yes, but -"
"I hate to break it to you, pal, but most of the time that's how it is for Users, too."
"Stranger and stranger...!"

- Tron, a movie which really made you think