14 Apr
2020
14 Apr
'20
4:06 p.m.
On Tue, 14 Apr 2020, Harald Arnesen wrote:
'Twas a joke circulating amongst the Computer Science lecturers at the
time (70s and all that); in fact, I think I first heard it from John Lions
himself...
I have no
plans to move to the US :-) To this day "ADD A TO B GIVING C
COMPUTATIONAL ROUNDED" still leaves me cold.
No one I know (I programmed COBOL at a couple of jobs in the 80s) ever
actually wrote that in COBOL. "COMPUTE C = A + B" is valid, and the
"COMPUTATIONAL ROUNDED" is handled by USAGE and PICTURE clauses in the
DATA DIVISION. I still dabble with GNU Cobol now and then.
I am reminded of the following Buddhist koan:
And the Novice asked the Master:
Novice: Master, does EMACS have the Buddha nature?
Master: Well, I don't see why not; it bloody well has everything
else in it.
I gots lots of those things :-)
-- Dave