Re: [Tiny-cobol-users] ACCEPT etc. WAS Segmentation Fault

[David E. <de...@us...>]

John Culleton wrote:

>  David Essex wrote:

>> I can assume you have encountered the '66 level ALTER statement'
 >> merry go round. Code who's real purpose was to ensure job
 >> security.
> 
> There was the contract programmer who ensured job security by a) sucking up to 
> the IBM SE and b) using fields called x1, x2 etc. as counters, later as 
> indexes, and then as accumulators for storing numeric data, all in the same 
> program.  He was of course fond of ALTER. 

Have you ever heard the story about some COBOL programmers employed in 
the financial sector.

Apparently these COBOL programmers had written some mission critical 
applications. They used so many 66 levels and ALTER statements, that it 
made very difficult for any else to understand the code.

Of course they used this code to ensure job security and what they 
considered a GOOD salary.

Eventually management, frustrated by this situation, secretly hired some 
programmers to rewrite these applications using structured programming 
methods.

Once the systems were up and running, they promptly fired all these 
COBOL programmers. To ensure this situation would not repeat
itself, they mandated that all applications must be written using 
structured programming methods.

I don't know if this story is true, but none the less, an interesting tale.


 >> May be worth your while to post it on the OC forum.
 >> I don't know if the developer subscribes to the OC
 >> mailing list.

I neglected to mention that I was referring to the OC forum located on 
the OC home web page (1).


Cheers

1) OpenCOBOL home web page
http://www.opencobol.org/