[vcf-midatlantic] COBOL wise-guy

[Bill Degnan]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 6:01 PM Barry L. Kline via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:

> On 4/14/20 1:56 PM, Jeffrey Jonas via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> > Bill Degnan posted
> > Q.  State the four divisions of a COBOL program
> >
> > A: earth air fire water: the 4 elements that make everything :-)
> >
>
>
> All I know is that the purpose of the COBOL compiler on RSTS/E was to
> teach how to spell the word environment.  You wouldn't believe how long
> the compilation error listing was if you missed the middle 'N'.
>
> BK
>

What I liked was the classic green screen terminals.  The code was all
body, lots of lines of asterisks separating each section.  Code was very
structured and exact.  You had to think in terms of columns, not rows.
Very apt to the punch card
B

>