Wow, pretty sure I've never seen this feature in any other language...
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Zorro Notorious MEB 🪷🪷🪷replied to leeb last edited by
@leeb Where does PL/I rank among languages?
Seriously,L/I was intended to replace both Fortran and Cobol at a time in history before the UK had converted their currency to a decimal system. This might be something Cobol had to do for use in the UK that PL/I adopted.
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@leeb The IBM 1401 computer had optional support for math with pounds/shillings/pence in hardware, back when there were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. Of course there were two incompatible standards, so the computer had a knob on the front panel to select the standard.
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leebreplied to Zorro Notorious MEB 🪷🪷🪷 last edited by
@AlgoCompSynth Still in use on modern mainframe systems so...
Yeah, I'm familiar with the history, and as a UKian I know about the currency changes - I just wasn't around at the time! I do remember very occasionally seeing some of the few remaining older coins in circulation as a child though.
Haven't investigated COBOL compilers of similar vintage yet, maybe I'll check them out. Thanks!
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@leeb @AlgoCompSynth Some COBOLs had specific special PICTURE statements for output in pounds/shillings/pence format.
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@kenshirriff @leeb tag urself I'm "IBM Shill"
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@kestral @kenshirriff Sorry, I don't understand. Could you elaborate, please?
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@leeb @kenshirriff A "shill" is generally someone who is a superfan, an apologist for, someone who is in the pocket of an organisation or a thing. So when I saw "IBM Shill" I made a joke of it, in the 'tag urself' meme format. Just humour!
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@kestral Yes, I know what a shill is. Your last toot didn't make any sense. Sorry if English isn't your native language, but your original message and subsequent reply didn't help me understand your point.
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@leeb It's both my native language and I teach it. But clearly you're spoiling for a fight - so please take your negativity and awful attitude elsewhere.
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@kestral
> tag urself I'm "IBM Shill"
This is not native English. Sorry you were offended. Goodbye. -
@leeb Look up a meme.
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mx alex tax1a - 2020 (4)replied to Mike Spooner last edited by
@shelldozer @leeb @AlgoCompSynth
PICTURE
variables are one of the more interesting features of COBOL — carrying the formatting metadata with the variable just isn't done in other programming languages.