Thursday, 20 November 2014

The Day a COBOL Programmer Heard the Call to Ministry


IF PART-NUMBER EQUALS CATALOGUE-NUMBER
    THEN PERFORM C100-PROCESS-ORDER-LINE THRU C199-END
ELSE PERFORM C200-NEXT-PART THRU C299-END
ELSE - LOOK, I KNOW THIS IS A BIT OFF THE WALL
BUT I'M NOT SURE ABOUT THIS WHOLE "EITHER / OR" PROGRAMMING CONSTRUCT
HASN'T IT EVER OCCURRED TO THE COMPILER THAT, IN THIS COMPLEX WORLD,
IT'S MUCH MORE OFTEN "BOTH / AND"?
I MEAN - CHRISTIANITY, PAGANISM - WHY DO WE HAVE TO CHOOSE?
TRADITION VERSUS PROGRESSIVE MORALITY - WHAT DO WE THINK WE'RE DOING?
IF WE CAN ALL HOLD HANDS IN A CIRCLE, AND JOIN IN AN UPLIFTING SONG - 
"KUM BY AH" OR "LORD OF THE DANCE"
DOES IT REALLY MATTER WHAT I BELIEVE?
AND LOOK! YOU DON'T HAVE TO INDENT! 
END-IF

4 comments :

  1. Archdruid ... some of your material is getting even *too* niche for me :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. REM All comments should begin with REM otherwise the
    REM compiler will go dolally
    REM I must be getting really old. I can remember a little COBOL.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I never got on to COBOL - only ever managed ALGOL & FORTRAN and machine code on a PDP

    ReplyDelete
  4. I met my husband-to-be on an ALGOL course... Computation and Numerical Analysis. I now leave you with an opportunity for a whole load of puns...

    ReplyDelete

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