RE: [xml-dev] ISO and the Standards Golden Hammer (was Re: [xml-d ev] You call that a standard?)

glib - perhaps. but not in the least disrespectful to one of the great
pioneers of our industry

at a time when there was machine "language", a few assemblers, and an
emerging mathematical language - fortran - cobol was insightful, and led
to a lot of later work.

but it also helped create the myth (and to some extent reflected the
optimism of the time) that anyone could be a programmer (and by
implication a good programmer) with a language that allowed them to
express their instructions more naturally.

with hindsight we know that's not true. just like not everyone, with
best will in the world, can become a "brain surgeon".

what i was really saying is that a lot of cobol's success is because it
was there first, widely deployed, and there is not a great roi in
replacing it in many cases. not to mention the trained resource to
maintain and develop.

and in many cases it's a good solution, but not always the best, today.

html is like that. xhtml is a nice idea, but probably won't take over.
my money is actually on flash because the graphic designers all like it.

and the html that is out there barely conforms to any standards - so
much for standards when the market grabs something.

rick

On Sat, 2004-05-01 at 13:21, BarryTauber wrote:
> Had jump in a little here. 
> The comment about COBOL simply being embedded was a little glib.
> Elegent is subjective, embedded acknowledged.
> Why is there so much COBOL, maybe because it does the job it was 
> designed to do.  Maybe because works?  Who knows?
> 
> Following is a fair summary of Adm. Grace Hopper's effort during 
> the 50's-60's.  I was told by someone who had worked with her,
> that when the Navy brass told her 'no', she responded in her own
> style - overwhelming force - with three, not one, compilers:
> one in French, one in English, and one in ancient Greek.
> 
> """
> Pursuing her belief that computer programs could be written in English,
> Admiral Hopper moved forward with the development for Univac of the B-0
> compiler, later known as FLOW-MATIC. It was designed to translate a language
> that could be used for typical business task like automatic billing and
> payroll calculation. Using FLOW-MATIC Admiral Hopper and her staff were able
> to make the UNIVAC and If "understand" twenty statements in English. When
> she recommended that an entire programming language be developed using
> English words, however, she "was told very quickly that [she] couldn't do
> this because computers didn't understand English." It was three year before
> her idea was finally accepted; she published her first compiler paper in
> 1952.
> 
> Admiral Hopper actively participated in the first meetings to formulate
> specifications for a common business language. She was one of the two
> technical advisers to the resulting CODA- Executive Committee, and several
> of her staff were member of the CODASYL Short Range Committee to define the
> basic COBOL language design. The design was greatly influenced by
> FLOW-MATIC. As one member of the Short Range Committee stated, "[FLOW-MATIC]
> was the only business-oriented programming language in use at the time COBOL
> development started... Without FLOW-MATIC we probably never would have had a
> COBOL." The first COBOL specifications appeared in 1959.
> 
> Admiral Hopper devoted much time to convincing business managers that
> English language compilers such as FLOW-MATIC and COBOL were feasible. She
> participated in a public demonstration by Sperry Corporation and RCA of
> COBOL compilers and the machine independence they provided. After her brief
> retirement from the Navy, Admiral Hopper led an effort to standardize COBOL
> and to persuade the entire Navy to use this high-level computer language.
> With her technical skills, she lead her team to develop useful COBOL manuals
> and tools. With her speaking skills, she convinced managers that they should
> learn to use them.
> 
> Another major effort in Admiral Hopper's life was the standardization of
> compilers. Under her direction, the Navy developed a set of programs and
> procedures for validating COBOL compilers. This concept of validation has
> had widespread impact on other programming languages and organizations; it
> eventually led to national and international standards and validation
> facilities for most programming languages.
> """
> 
> 
> Barry Tauber ( ) 847-267-8011 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Marshall [mailto:] 
> Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 10:02 PM
> To: Ken North
> Cc: 
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] ISO and the Standards Golden Hammer (was Re: [xml-d
> ev] You call that a standard?)
> 
> On Sat, 2004-05-01 at 05:34, Ken North wrote:
> > > > Characters sets and coding (ASCII, OCR-A, OCR-B, MICR, bar codes)
> > > > Audio and video compression (MPEG 1, 2, 4)
> > > > Graphics: GKS, PHIGS, CGM, JBIG
> > > > Messaging/mail: X.400
> > > > Languages: C, C++, Ada, SQL, FORTRAN, COBOL, Pascal, Modula-2, POSIX,
> CLI
> > > > Storage, networking, bus interfaces: SCSI, SCSI-2, FDDI, CSMA/CD,
> VMEbus,
> > > > Multibus, HIPPI, RS-232/V.24 electrical
> > > > Markup: SGML, RELAX NG, VRML
> > > > Geocoding: ISO 19100 (19107, 19108, 19123, 19127)
> > >
> > > Most of these weren't ISO/ITU committees, but were either private
> > > industry consortia, or other standards work that got a "finishing
> > > polish."
> > 
> > 
> > The origin of ISO standards is a mixed bag. Standards such as JPEG and
> MPEG were
> > created by expert groups affiliated with ISO. JPEG, for example, was
> originally
> > an ISO working group, then a joint group (with CCITT).
> > 
> > Before there was a de jure standard for C, the de facto standard was
> Kernighan
> > and Ritchie's book ("The C Programming Language"). You had to pay close
> > attention to what compiler and features you were using as the language
> evolved
> > past K&R.
> > 
> > Newer standards have been fast-tracked from "local" standards
> organizations or
> > industry consortia through the ISO process. Examples include
> > SQLJ (ANSI->ISO) and VRML (Web3D->ISO).
> > 
> > Perhaps a more interesting question is not how an ISO standard originated,
> but
> > what long-term impact we've seen from them:
> > 
> > 1. ASCII was a draft ISO standard about 40 years ago. IBM owned 70% of the
> > computer market by the late 60s so EBCDIC was commonplace. The IBM user
> group
> > (SHARE) even opposed the adoption of ASCII in the mid-60s. Today it's hard
> to
> > find EBCDIC outside of the IBM mainframe world. On the other hand, ISO 646
> / ISO
> > 8859 web pages are pretty common -- clear evidence of the effect a
> standard can
> > have for several decades.
> > 
> > 2. Admiral Grace Hopper and a CODASYL committee published the first spec
> for
> > COBOL in 1960 and it became an ANSI standard in 1968. There are two
> million
> > COBOL programmers today, long after Y2K is no longer on our radar screen.
> One
> > reason is because there are still 200 billion lines of COBOL code in
> production
> > applications. Most of the transaction processing code that runs every day
> is
> > COBOL ( processing 30 billion transactions per day).
> > 
> > Has COBOL persisted because it's elegant, or because it's a standard?
> or it's just embedded?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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