From: arne@vajhoej.dk   
      
   On 11/11/2025 3:59 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:   
   > On Tue, 11 Nov 2025 15:23:29 -0000 (UTC), Waldek Hebisch wrote:   
   >> Well, Cobol represents practices of 1960 business data processing.   
   >> At that time it was state of the art. But state of the art changed.   
   >> Cobol somewhat adapted but it slow to this.   
   >   
   > The example I like to mention is the rise of the SQL DBMS. These   
   > became very important for “business data processing” use in the 1980s.   
      
   Yes.   
      
   And the preferred languages was Cobol and PL/I.   
      
   > But the best way to interface to one of these is by dynamically   
   > generating SQL command strings.   
      
   If you are writing a hobby program the math looks like:   
      
   dynamic SQL strings : 2 minutes of work to write code   
      
   the right way : 30 minutes of work to write code   
      
   If you are writing a program for doing account operations in   
   a bank expect:   
      
   dynamic SQL strings : 2 minutes of work to write code + 60 minutes   
   review time for each of 5 senior engineers   
      
   the right way : 30 minutes of work to write code   
      
   >                                        And guess what: dynamic string   
   > handling is something that was specifically left out of COBOL, because   
   > it was not seen as important for “business” use.   
      
   Nonsense.   
      
   Cobol does dynamic string handling just fine.   
      
   Not as good as Java, Python, PHP and other newer languages.   
      
   But better than Fortran, C and many other common languages   
   back then.   
      
   (and I believe we have told you so before)   
      
   Arne   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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