Re: [open-cobol-list] 60 character identifiers

[Brian Tiffin]

On Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:00:08 -0400, john Culleton <address@hidden>  
wrote:

> On Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:59:13 -0400
> Patrick <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > Hi Vince
> >
> > The change in the allowable length is part of the Cobol 2002 standard.
> >
> > Please see here:
> >
> > http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jni/courses/ProgrammignInCobol/presentation/ch02.ppt
> >
> > Please go to slide 32 of 35
> >
> > I have written a bit of OO in several languages and all I have ever
> > used was singleton classes. I don't really think I need full blown
> > objection orientation. Cobol 85 already has facilities for code reuse
> > and code layouts that allow code to be private or public. I would
> > however like to use naming conventions that show relationships and I
> > am worried I will run out of space with 30 characters.
> >
> > Thanks for responding to my post-Patrick
> >
> >
> >
> > On 12/03/13 08:00 PM, vince wrote:
> > >> For my needs 30 character identifier are just fine for variables.
> > >> However I would like to simulate an object oriented approach and I
> > >> want to use very long file names, for example:
> > >>
> > >> parent-child-private-doSomething.cob
> > >> parent-child-public-dosomethingElse.cob
> > >> etc
> > >>
> > > Now some good news and some bad  ..
> > >
> > > Good:
> > > In Linux and Windows for that matter you can have long file names
> > >
> > >
> > >> Is there a way to set the limit to 60?
> > >>
> > >> I am about 3-6 months away from being able to contribute to open
> > >> Cobol development, have to learn Cobol first and read up on Bison,
> > >> Flex and Autotools but I could try to tackle this if this is a
> > >> good 2002 feature to implement.
> > >>
> > > Bad:
> > > Cobol has intrinsic limits for a range of variables that was
> > > set/created in the 50's.
> > >
> > > Increasing it would LIMIT the compilers/platforms that are used to
> > > migrate an existing source program that did not conform to a
> > > reasonable level of the Cobol standards.
> > >
> > > Good:
> > > There is an organisation based in the USA that has members around
> > > the world that have an interest in redefining and creating updates
> > > to the Cobol standard.
>
> Frankly IMO many of the changes made in the standard since 1974 have
> tended to defeat one of the chief objectives (no pun intended) of the
> language. Programmer A should be able to pick up a program written by
> programmer B and understand what is going on. The more features that
> are added the less likely this is to be accomplished. I sometimes
> worry about the standards writers. Did they ever work in a production
> shop? Did they ever hear Grace Murray Hopper discuss her objectives in
> designing the language? Not every change is an improvement.

John.  I hang out on LinkedIn, COBOL Professionals Group (Grace Hopper  
Appreciation Society).  Donald Nelson posts the odd snippet once in a  
while.

While discussing in a thread asking if people had met Grace Hopper (it's  
an open LinkedIn Group, so I don't think I'm in trouble for retweeting the  
quote).

"...I was chairman of the CODASYL COBOL Committee in the 70s, 80s, and  
90s. She was on the CODASYL Executive Committee and we had yearly  
meetings. She often would accuse me of damaging COBOL because it was not  
like when she invented it. I usually gently told her that she didn't  
actually invent it, so she said that she was at least the grandmother of  
COBOL. She was a wonderful lady with a great sense of humor and was sharp  
as a tack..."

So, yeah seems they did hear Grace's objectives (and objections).   :)

But I'm all for extending COBOL out beyond its roots.  I don't run banks  
though, and have way too much fun embedding things like the Shakespeare  
Programming Language into OpenCOBOL.  Maybe not where COBOL wants to go,  
but so much fun to be had.

Cheers,
Brian