From: bill.gunshannon@gmail.com   
      
   On 12/1/2025 6:50 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:   
   > On 12/1/2025 5:46 PM, bill wrote:   
   >> On 12/1/2025 4:02 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:   
   >>> On 12/1/2025 8:37 AM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   >>>> I got the impression Waldek was referring to updating programs   
   >>>> written to old versions of COBOL to use facilities introduced in   
   >>>> newer versions of COBOL, though perhaps I am mistaken.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Regardless, this raises an interesting point: the latest version   
   >>>> of COBOL is, I believe, COBOL 2023.  But that language is rather   
   >>>> different than the original 1960 COBOL.  So even simply updating   
   >>>> a COBOL program is akin to rewriting it in another language.   
   >>>   
   >>> The Cobol standard has been continuously updated over   
   >>> the decades. But very few are using the new stuff added   
   >>> the last 25 years.   
   >   
   >> Not really true. The only thing COBOL professionals have, for   
   >> the most part, refused to use is the OOP stuff.  Some of the   
   >> other changes that are within the COBOL model were very welcome   
   >> additions.  Like EVALUATE.  Got rid of a lot of multiple page   
   >> IF-THEN-ELSE monstrosities.   
   >   
   > EVALUATE came with COBOL 85. That is not within the   
   > last 25 years.   
   >   
   > New features within last 25 years besides OOP include:   
   > * recursion support   
   > * unicode support   
   > * pointers and dynamic memory allocation   
   > ^ XML support   
   > * collection classes   
   >   
   > Have you seen COBOL code using those?   
      
   I have seen and used pointers but not in production code as at 75   
   I am not finding many places that want me to work.  :-)   
      
   XML isn't really anything to do with the language it's a file   
   format. Probably has no place in the language itself.   
      
   UNICODE the same thing.  It could be done fairly easily with a library   
   but isn't really anything that COBOL had to have as a part of the   
   language.   
      
   Wouldn't classes fall under OOP.  Like other long time COBOL   
   programmers I never saw where that brought anything to help   
   the tasks COBOL was intended for.  But it is probably great   
   for people using the wrong language for a particular job.   
      
   Now recursion!  There's something useful.  Have to take a look   
   at it.   
      
   bill   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)