Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!udel!gatech!hubcap!ncrcae!usceast!sharp
From: sharp@usceast.UUCP (Harry Sharp)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran Problem  --  HELP!!
Message-ID: <2590@usceast.UUCP>
Date: 27 Apr 88 22:58:06 GMT
References: <4766@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: sharp@usceast.UUCP (Harry Sharp)
Organization: University of South Carolina, Columbia
Lines: 55
Keywords: Reports <> FORTRAN | c

In article <4766@cup.portal.com> JJ@cup.portal.com writes:
>You are in charge of payroll for the ACME Vending Co., Inc..
>It is your job to write a program which will print a payroll
>report for the 10 employees of the company.  To prepare the
>payroll report, you must READ the identification number, hours
>worked, hourly rate, and tax rate, for each employee.  After
>entering this information for all employees, the screen should
>be cleared before the OUTPUT is presented.  All of this
>information is to be printed along with the gross pay, regular
>pay, overtime pay, deductions for taxes, and net pay.  The last
>line of OUTPUT should be:
>
>"The total gross payroll for the week is _________".
>
>Overtime is considered anything over 40 hours per week.
>Overtime pay is worth 1.55 times the regular hourly rate.
>
>Output should look like this:
>
>NAME    ID    GROSS    REG   OVT   DED        NET PAY
>====    ==    =====    ===   ===   ===        =======

Come on guys!

This is obviously a problem NOT suited for FORTRAN.  Character manipulation
in FORTRAN has been and will be a headache and a less than perfect
endeavor.

The program is a payroll program (read: business application).  For this
problem you need a language well suited to report generation and file
handling.  FORTRAN ain't it.

The language for this problem is (hold on all you scientific types)

	COBOL

and yes I hear all those groans. ;-)

This is a prime example of what I argue against every day here in the CS
department.  Languages should be chosen to best approach the problem.

You wouldn't do Monte Carlo simulation in COBOL, why do payroll in FORTRAN? 

	Harry Sharp

 
 [=============================================================================]
        Harry Sharp

        USMail : Dept of Computer SciencE, USC, Columbia, SC 29208
        BITNET : T170126 @ UNIVSCVM
		 ncr-sd!ncrcae-\
        E-mail :  gatech!hubcap->!usceast!sharp
		    (?) ihnp4--/
 [=============================================================================]