Re: [Tiny-cobol-users] Comparing TC and OC

[John R. C. <jo...@we...>]

On Friday 29 December 2006 09:40, vince coen wrote:
> Hi All;
>
> Has anyone compared the facilities and functionality between Open Cobol and
> Tiny Cobol?
>
> If so is it documented anywhere?
>
> Vince.

I know the following:
1. Tiny is no longer under development by the original creator.
2. Tiny has both positional DISPLAY statements and the SCREEN SECTION.
3. There is an example in the test.code library of Tiny of interface via C 
code to the Tcl/Tk package, which opens up the prospect of a windowed GUI.
4. Documentation in English on Tiny is sparse and for some features only 
available in Portugese. The creator is a Brazilian.
5. Tiny is built to COBOL 85 which is fine with me.  Open is over time 
incorporating some of the newer features in later standards, while not 
implementing the older interface features mentioned above. 

Anent point 5 above, in my not humble opinion COBOL started downhill in COBOL 
73 and has continued to stray from the original concept of a self-documenting 
natural language business application tool. Just look at the unnecesary 
butchery on the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.  But I digress... 

Overall I prefer Tiny for its superior interactive capablities. But Open is 
the one that is under active development AFAIK.  I am working on the code you 
lent me using Tiny. Open would be impractical for those programs. 

Others with more background will undoubtedly add to/correct my analysis above. 
 

-- 
John Culleton
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