First computer language

[Derek Broughton]

Anthony Gardner wrote:

> First, you take a hammer and a chisel .....
> 
> That is tongue-in-cheek (sorry) ;) It was the first
> language I learnt (appropriate for this discussion)
> and  I remember having to write the code on graph
> paper!!. I don't know if that was the teacher's
> technique or how you write Cobol programs.
> 
Well, we used to have real coding forms - graph paper would be a cheap
substitute.  You have to remember (well, maybe not :-) ) that, until WatBOL
(at least, I'm pretty sure that was the first free-format COBOL), COBOL had
to be coded with labels in columns 1-6, a continuation character in column
7, actual code in 8-72, and sequence numbers in 73-80.  The coding forms
would make it easy for the keypunch operator to get it right (because we
used to have to give it to a secretary to get it onto the computer - one
terminal or keypunch machine per 20 or 30 programmers).

To answer Bjørn's question, I wouldn't even try to learn COBOL.  Just
because there's a ton of work for COBOL programmers doesn't mean you need
to learn it.  In the first place, the amount of COBOL code _should_ be
declining.  I doubt there's a whole lot of new COBOL development.  Also,
I've always believed that once you can program in a couple of languages,
you can program in anything.  With the advent of Java (yes, I know it
wasn't the first OO language, but it was the first to really catch on),
that changed a bit, because people familiar with many procedural languages
still had trouble getting their minds around OO, but still if you can write
two or three languages, you'll have no trouble figuring out COBOL.
--
derek

> --- Bjørn Ingmar Berg <bjorn.ingmar.berg at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> On 23/08/05, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca>
>> wrote:
>> > [...]  Almost all the financial services companies
>> are still using it.
>> > It's not hard to believe.  I was still working in
>> Cobol five years ago.  My
>> > wife was 3 years ago.  The people we worked with
>> are still doing it...
>> > --
>> > derek
>> 
>> Interesting.  So how would you recommend going about
>> to learn Cobol?
>> And just to make sure; I genuinely want to know, I'm
>> not tongue-in-cheek
>> here.