One of the reasons people used COBOL is that it handled currency better. You'd say "ACCOUNT-BALANCE PIC S999999V99" to specify the account balance was signed

One of the reasons people used COBOL is that it handled currency better. You'd say "ACCOUNT-BALANCE PIC S999999V99" to specify the account balance was signed with 8 digits, and an implied decimal point (V) before the last two. The math was done with integers so floating point inaccuracy wasn't a problem. An unrelated issue with money handling: I once got a credit card charge for $NaN (not a number). Fortunately it was resolved without me needing to write a check for $0/0. Photo of the receipt at http://www.righto.com/2008/05/importance-of-software-testing.html http://www.righto.com/2008/05/importance-of-software-testing...