Hi all,

Did you know that COBOL 2000 will support OO (and a host of other goodies).
When/if it's released, then does it become the language to beat all
languages?  After all, it will be able to do all it does now, plus some
juicy enhancements for business and the coder, and also allow (please excuse
this) true OO .

A coder is coder, either good or bad no matter the computer language,  just
as an orator is an orator, good or bad no matter what the language.

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
        Sent:   Thursday, February 15, 2001 3:24 PM
        To:     [log in to unmask]
        Subject:        Re: COBOL and object-oriented programming

        X-no-Archive:yes
        Ah, to the language wars!

        If anything kills COBOL, it will be COBOL programmers, who are not
using the
        language to its fullest. So, if you can find a copy, I recommend
"Object
        Orientation: An Introduction for COBOL Programmers", where the
author
        explains the ideas from structured development that gave rise to OO.
The
        hardest part is the new jargon.

        I will point out that all of Micro Focus's tools are written in
COBOL. The
        editor, the compiler (!), their GUI workbench. Sure, this is
probably
        pushing the limits of the language. OTOH, I would like to see any
language
        handle an unlimited number of strings of unlimited text. My
workstation has
        64MB of RAM, and I want to see the language that will allow me to
pass it's
        subroutines a string 68,719,476,737 chars long.

        Since the current draft of the next COBOL standard contains OO
extensions,
        many if not all the things Ken mentions are possible. I believe that
MF
        COBOL already supports DBCS, so Unicode should be no problem.

        Greg Stigers
        http://www.cgiusa.com
        It's getting easier to hate advocacy