3 ms·
That’s actually quite readable
by chris_wot 9y ago
That’s actually quite readable
- the_af 9y agoReadability is relative, of course. It's more readable than assembly language, compared to which COBOL is a win (for its intended use, of course). Compared to GW Basic (or any Basic with line numbers) it's probably about the same, though more verbose. Compared to a modern language, it's less readable and full of bizarre boilerplate. The question is, if you are not forced by a customer (such as a bank) or by the need to maintain a legacy system, why would you willingly choose COBOL?
- chris_wot 9y agoSure, if the money was right. I actually know a bit of COBOL, most of it forgotten. After a while I would move on if they didn’t give me other projects, but I’d even be willing to do it in parallel.
- the_af 9y agoNot sure if I understand you. Isn't "if the money was right" another way of saying "if forced by the customer/platform"? In other words, if the customer told you "pick the language you want" and the platform wasn't a mainframe, why would you choose COBOL?
- chris_wot 9y agoWell, I wouldn't. The language has a lot of shortcomings. All I was saying was that it was fairly readable.
- elygre 9y agoI’d be curious to see that in Scala — would it be any more readable?
- the_af 9y agoYes. It's certainly going to be shorter, and if you're familiar with modern programming idioms, also more understandable.