From: arne@vajhoej.dk   
      
   On 12/2/2025 10:46 AM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   > In article <10gn0cq$2d8ve$1@dont-email.me>,   
   > Arne Vajhøj   wrote:   
   >> On 12/2/2025 8:50 AM, Dan Cross wrote:   
   >>> An issue with COBOL is that, given procedures A, B, ..., Z,   
   >>> written sequentially in source, `PERFORM A THRU Z` means that it   
   >>> is difficult to see when procedures B, C, ..., Y are called just   
   >>> through visual inspection since calls to them are implicit; you   
   >>> really need semantically aware tools to do that.  So if you need   
   >>> to change paragraph D, then you run the risk of implicitly   
   >>> changing dependent behavior in your system unintentionally.  You   
   >>> might end up violating some assumption you didn't even know   
   >>> existed; talk about spooky action at a distance.   
   >>   
   >> That is a classical argument found on the internet.   
   >   
   > Yes.  I myself have been making it for years.   
   >   
   >> But I am not convinced that it is critical.   
   >>   
   >> It is all within one file.   
   >>   
   >> $ search foobar.cob thru,through   
   >>   
   >> should reveal if the feature is used.   
   >>   
   >> Unless the file is very long and the code is very ugly, then   
   >> I believe it should be relative easy possible to track the   
   >> perform flow even in VT mode EDT or EVE.   
   >   
   > I'm not at all convinced of that in a large code base; call   
   > graphs resulting in such `PERFORM`s can be too big to trace by   
   > hand.  And many of these extant COBOL applications are quite   
   > large, indeed.   
      
   There are lots of hundreds of thousands or millions of lines of   
   code applications.   
      
   But hopefully not as single file.   
      
   :-)   
      
   Arne   
      
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