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From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Call  for Discussion: alt.cobol
Message-ID: <1989Nov25.193310.20967@world.std.com>
Date: 25 Nov 89 19:33:10 GMT
References: <5301@garfield.MUN.EDU>
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Lines: 28
In-Reply-To: chris2@garfield.MUN.EDU's message of 25 Nov 89 00:42:16 GMT


>microsoft has cobol, mvs has cobol, vms has cobol, rt-11 has cobol,
>!!alt!! needs cobol.

There's at least one Cobol for Unix, it's called "RM Cobol" (I am
*not* making this up), and they never understand the snickers as we
walk by their booth at trade shows.

I have nothing against a Cobol group, I have nothing against Cobol (as
long as they, er, keep to their place), but I think the question of
"where is the interest?" is valid.

Completeness arguments ("there's a group for other major languages")
and marketing arguments ("there are a zillion cobol programmers out
there, somewhere") just don't cut it.

Are there at least several people who will stand up and say "I am a
Cobol programmer and would benefit personally from this group" rather
than the current spate of "I've known some Cobol programmers and
they're not bad folks...wouldn't let my daughter marry one though..."

There really seems to be a disturbing third-person aspect to this
discussion.
-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade         | bzs@world.std.com
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