Message from @Hugh

Discord ID: 493882874831831051


2018-09-24 20:27:11 UTC  

I graduated in 94

2018-09-24 20:27:28 UTC  

I was programming for the 2,000 disaster that never came

2018-09-24 20:27:30 UTC  

49

2018-09-24 20:28:31 UTC  

its a character code, they taught it in the same class as the coding for the machine language

2018-09-24 20:28:46 UTC  

that is all I remember

2018-09-24 20:28:58 UTC  

I had a card with all the commands

2018-09-24 20:29:03 UTC  

it wasn't that complciated

2018-09-24 20:29:10 UTC  

I got an A in the class

2018-09-24 20:29:26 UTC  

most of the coding classes I got an A in

2018-09-24 20:29:28 UTC  

🤦

2018-09-24 20:29:31 UTC  

cobol I had a bad teacher

2018-09-24 20:29:39 UTC  

first class I got a C in it

2018-09-24 20:29:58 UTC  

couldn't live with a C, I retook the class several times

2018-09-24 20:30:31 UTC  

I programmed in cobol on the job, not sure why you think its a dead language

2018-09-24 20:30:42 UTC  

it might be dead now but when I coded it it wasn't dead yet

2018-09-24 20:31:09 UTC  

most of the data was already input, they were mostly read off huge reals of tape

2018-09-24 20:31:28 UTC  

I did no data entry, I was programming

2018-09-24 20:33:13 UTC  

I had one class on the machine coding

2018-09-24 20:33:25 UTC  

I knew the rudimentary basics of coding in machine language

2018-09-24 20:33:38 UTC  

I never needed it for a job, never used it professinally

2018-09-24 20:34:13 UTC  

did it have a name

2018-09-24 20:34:14 UTC  

the biggest problem with cobol is you need a priming read to start the whole process

2018-09-24 20:34:28 UTC  

then yo ucan do normal reads with cobol and its all set

2018-09-24 20:34:42 UTC  

I was showing someone the basics of cobol and they completely forgot and didn't know about the priming read

2018-09-24 20:34:51 UTC  

thru the entire input and output off

2018-09-24 20:34:56 UTC  

program blew up

2018-09-24 20:35:25 UTC  

I had a cobol teacher talking about a special method to avoid the priming read needed for cobol, but it was overly complicated and not worth doing

2018-09-24 20:35:56 UTC  

its basically getting your first record/setting it to read the first record

2018-09-24 20:36:02 UTC  

......

2018-09-24 20:36:09 UTC  

the point is that cobol doesn't work without the priming read

2018-09-24 20:36:19 UTC  

and if you think I'm not an expert in computer info systems, yhour wrong, I am

2018-09-24 20:36:25 UTC  

I know what I'm talking about

2018-09-24 20:36:36 UTC  

he asked what a priming read is

2018-09-24 20:36:37 UTC  

you need a priming read to get cobol to work

2018-09-24 20:37:14 UTC  

I said its getting your first record and/or setting it to read the first record

2018-09-24 20:37:21 UTC  

I believe its actgually grabbing that first record

2018-09-24 20:37:43 UTC  

the loop doesn't work without doing that priminig read

2018-09-24 20:37:56 UTC  

I'm well aware of how programming works

2018-09-24 20:38:58 UTC  

I'm not here to play 20 questions about my knowledge of programming

2018-09-24 20:39:08 UTC  

I've been retired for many years

2018-09-24 20:39:25 UTC  

you can think what you want, I already proved it