Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > COBOL wasn't bad for its time. It's wordy because everything is line
> > oriented, and it was supposed to be easy for non-programmers to read,
> > and a 32K machine with 4 meg of disk space and milisecond cycle times
> > was a high-end mainframe.
>
>   I always got the impression that COBOL was the "BASIC" of the 70's,
> while all real programmers used Fortran. (Heck, even nowadays some old
> gurus state that real programmers use Fortran.)
>
> --
>                                                           - Warp

COBOL was a little more than BASIC, but it was "THE" business programming
language.  For most large businesses today, it still is the primary programming
language for their mainstream applications (ie. order processing, inventory,
billing, etc.), at least in the USA.  Since I'm not in the scientific or
engineering field, I don't know how much Fortran is still being used.  Most
COBOL programmers looked down their noses at the nerdy little techie Fortran
programmers, while as you said, Fortran programmers never considered COBOL
programmers as real programmers. Since Fortran was my first language, I never
have cared much for COBOL, but unfortunatly I have to deal with it most every
day.

Isaac

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