COBOL standard text (writing usage manuals for OpenCOBOL) - cobol

"James J. Gavan" <jgavandeletethis@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:SJSLk.973$3w.33@newsfe19.iad...
> Pete Dashwood wrote:
>> "James J. Gavan" <jgavandeletethis@shaw.ca> wrote in message
>> news:NDILk.36112$SH5.29397@newsfe08.iad...
>>
>>>btiffin@canada.com wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Oct 22, 1:36 am, "William M. Klein" <wmkl...@nospam.netcom.com>
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>(I was afraid that Jimmy or someone would bring my name into this <G>).
>>>>
>>>>Perhaps I need to explain more. I have plans for both an OpenCOBOL
>>>>Reference Manual and a Standards Compliance Document.
>>>>
>>>
>>>As to whether or not you can 'copy and paste' - can I make a suggestion.
>>>Write to the chair of J4 and ask. Outline it's Open COBOL you are talking
>>>about and you would like to produce accurate support documentation. See
>>>if J4 (Oops it's now PL22.4), have any objections. In theory they
>>>shouldn't - after all you are promoting COBOL, albeit somewhat late in
>>>the day/century.
>>
>>
>> Given that the current chair represents MicroFocus, who would see Open
>> COBOL as direct competition, this may not be good advice, Jimmy.
>>
> Boy oh boy have I've got to bring you up-to-date :-)
>
> You are referring to Don Schricker, Stateside. Initially domiciled in the
> East, moved to Vegas from where he did his J4 bit and attended the
> launching of the good USN vessel 'Grace Hopper'. About the time the new
> CEO (Kelly ?),arrived at M/F (California), Don got the heave-ho in a fresh
> set of musical chairs. Bit of a twiddling of thumbs, and probably quite
> reluctantly, Bob Karlin of Karlin's Korner stepped up to the plate. Nobody
> wants the thankless, friggin job - WMK wouldn't take it on even if they
> gave him a salary from their petty cash :-). Huib Klink, still domiciled
> in the Netherlands and now on the M/F payroll - (remember Huib's 'Invoking
> Up and Down' from softwaresimple; he used CLC quite some years back,
> calling himself the 'COBOL Frog'). As a result of the changeover, and
> becoming M/F's main J4/PL22.4 man, he stressed nobody wanted the job.
>

It's hard to be serious about this now :-) But thanks for the update.

>>
>>>If the bureaucratic ANSI is the "n.... in the woodpile' - see if PL22.4
>>>will speak up on your behalf.
>>>
>>>Much too late, I don't have any interest in Open COBOL.
>>
>
>> This is sad. I remember you being one of the first to advocate it, many
>> years ago. Times and people change.

Don't get me wrong, I respect your right to change your mind (and, in this
instance, I certainly don't blame you). My sadness was at seeing enthusiasm
turn to apathy. I know it happens all the time, but it is always sad in my
book.
>>
> I've made the remark before and you then commented that I 'persuaded' you
> to have an interest. That was then, this is NOW. The OP can confirm - but
> basically Open COBOL stopped dead at COBOL 85 but I think they have since
> added some useful features from COBOL 2002. But the one you and I are most
> interested in - OO - zippo. I very much doubt they want to or have the
> capacity to embrace that. They maybe dedicated hobbyists, but it's only
> with the objective of making money that the 'real' compilers exist. That
> is not to denigrate their efforts - but I hope it clarifies my position.
>
>>>But please, please, regardless of which sources you use, think about
>>>producing documentation in a readable form without the legalese. And if
>>>somebody is reading about COBOL files - for God's sake have a chapter on
>>>"COBOL Files" - not spread the damn topic alphabetically all over the
>>>place with cross-references as the PL22.4 documentation does.
>>
>>
>> I agree. The documentation is not a tribute to clear English (and a
>> technical manual should be), but we shouldn't be too hard on the people
>> who wrote it. They are constrained by rules, and documenting everything
>> in COBOL is a mammoth task, especially when it includes features that
>> haven't even been written yet, (and, apparently, are unlikely to be...How
>> would YOU feel about spending hours documenting something you knew nobody
>> was likely to ever use...? For myself, I try to decline tasks I consider
>> pointless.) Nevertheless, when documentation is dry and boring it doesn't
>> encourage people to read it. That is probably why most of the vendors
>> provide a plain English "User's Guide" in addition to the "Language
>> Reference Manual".
>>
>> PL22.4 might well emulate this.
>>
> Your 'Alphabet soup' crowd ? No way - six people max at the moment. I
> would suggest they are a very dedicated bunch of people; certainly our
> beloved Bill was when he was involved. The 'gent' who did all the
> writing - charming, cheerful, wrote at least one COBOL text. He put not
> days but YEARS in writing the text according to their standards; with all
> the bloody convoluting cross-referencing they locked themselves into an
> unwieldy monster.
>
> So same 'gent' - Thane asked him to join Softwaresimple. My name came up
> in the text, and he made it plainly clear that he wanted no part of
> something I was involved in, and "Yes you pissed me off".

Ah, sensible fella... :-)

>"Sorry about that" I replied, "But I'll tell it like I see it".

A sound policy. It works for me. Sometimes you will get it wrong, sometimes
you won't have all the facts, but in the end, if you call things like you
see them, people will at least respect your integrity.

BTW, it is IMPOSSIBLE to be forthright and NOT piss SOMEONE off. As long as
it isn't done with the express intention of pissing people off, I see no
harm in it.


> He was deeply offended that we could criticize T-H-E-I-R COBOL
> documentation - the purveyors of the Authority from God. We serfs must
> surely accept what they provide.

If someone works on a draft document, they should EXPECT criticism and be
glad to get it. I have Editors who criticise my writing all the time. I
don't get unwrapped over it; I learn from it. It is not done with malice, it
is intended to make things better. To be "precious" about our creations,
whether they are prose, poetry, art work, music, or software, is to endow
them with an attribute of perfection that they are unlikely to actually
have, and almost certainly not in a draft... :-)

>
> You name didn't come up. But be assured it was also uttered with a
> venomous flick of the tongue!

LOL! From these people I would want nothing less... :-)

>One of the first things Chuck Stevens ever wrote, privately, was that on
>joining J4 he became acquainted with the 'Gang of Two' - none other than
>Seamus and Petrus. Now why on earth would they single you out ? :-) :-)

Because (according to Lee at least), I look good in a tuxedo :-)?

I guess it goes with the territory; if you are going to publicly disagree
with people (even if you do it gently, and I didn't in those days) you can
hardly expect them to like you or say nice things about you. Fortunately, I
learned while still a young man, not to NEED aproval or admiration from
others (although it is nice if you get it :-)). It's a bit like losing your
hair; soon as you stop worrying about it, it stops falling out... :-)

Never mind. It's all pretty academic now.

And where did it leave COBOL...?

<sound of wind across a desert as tumbleweeds move mournfully...>

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."

"William M. Klein" <wmklein@nospam.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:vxSLk.619936$J72.80441@fe05.news.easynews.com...
>
> "James J. Gavan" <jgavandeletethis@shaw.ca> wrote in message
> news:NDILk.36112$SH5.29397@newsfe08.iad...
>> btiffin@canada.com wrote:
>>> On Oct 22, 1:36 am, "William M. Klein" <wmkl...@nospam.netcom.com>
> <snip>
>> As to whether or not you can 'copy and paste' - can I make a suggestion.
>> Write to the chair of J4 and ask. Outline it's Open COBOL you are talking
>> about and you would like to produce accurate support documentation. See
>> if J4 (Oops it's now PL22.4), have any objections. In theory they
>> shouldn't - after all you are promoting COBOL, albeit somewhat late in
>> the day/century.
>>
> As to getting "official permission" to cut & paste text from the existing
> (2002) Standard, The correct place to get such permission is from either
> INCITS or ISO. (I would sugest using INCITS.) You can get contact
> information from their webpage. I would suggest that you quote the text
> from the cover page and word the "request" as a CONFIRMATION request that
> you may do the cut&paste based on those words.
>
> There is, however, another question when it comes to wording for a
> "reference manual". What do you plan on doing about EXTENSTION language
> that is in OpenCOBOL, e.g.
> COMP-3
> RETURN-CODE
> etc
>
> The normal/common language for describing these is NOT part of the
> Standard document. If you want to you MIGHT be able to use "short"
> quotations from IBM, Micro Focus, etc manuals - if you provide proper
> attribution for them.
>
> There is also the question of WHICH Standard you want to cut&paste from.
> OpenCOBOL does not claim to meet the full 2002 Standard. MOSTLY it meets
> the '85 Standard. However, NO ONE can give you permission to quote from
> that any more. You could believe what is in the "acknowledgement" section
> of the document and quote (cut&paste) based on that. However, if you
> that, then there are LOTS of other syntax that woul need to be considered
> extensions. These are features form the '02 Standard that are in
> OpenCOBOL but not in the '85 Standard, e.g.
> - GoBack
> - USAGE POINTER
> - Local-Storage
> and many, many more
>
As usual, Bill, you have provided very sound advice.

I have a question, though.

Given that he can't get permission from anyone to quote from the 85
Standard, doesn't that kind of imply he could quote from it with impunity?

In the (I should think...) unlikely event that anyone (who is not a COBOL
vendor or with a similar vested interest) would want to sue the Open COBOL
people, it seems to me that a very reasonable defence in Law would be:
"Given that it was impossible to get permission or denial from the producers
of the 85 standard, given that there is a disclaimer from the original
CODASYL comittee (founders of the language) clearly laying out their
intentions for the COBOL language and making explicit that it is NOT subject
to Copyright, given their was no obvious intention on the part of Open COBOL
to defraud or swindle anyone, surely, there is no case to answer?"

Vendors of COBOL have a right to Copyright to protect their considerable
investment in software and documentation (it would be wrong to cut and paste
from an IBM manual, for instance, especially without permission or
attribution) but the STANDARD is not supposed to belong to any particular
person or body. (I think that was the gist of your objection over the
proposed removal of the Disclaimer from the Standards document, wasn't it,
Bill?)

I have to say, if it were me undertaking such an exercise, I'd go ahead and
use the '85 standard. But that's easy for me to say, sitting in a remote
Pacific island with no formal assets anyone could sue me for :-)

It just strikes me as a shame that someone of good intent has all these
obstacles and red tape to overcome, with so many grey areas it just makes it
non-viable. You would forgive the OP for giving up.

But that has been the history of COBOL ever since CODASYL relinquished it.

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."

In article <6mb2poFfhdk0U1@mid.individual.net>,
Pete Dashwood <dashwood@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:

[snip]

>Given that he can't get permission from anyone to quote from the 85
>Standard, doesn't that kind of imply he could quote from it with impunity?

Mr Dashwood, have you been paying no attention at all? He clearly stated
that he did not want to 'quote from it with impunity'...

.... he said he wanted to 'quote from it with a copy-and-paste'.

(yet another reason why I rarely get invited to meetings)

DD

<docdwarf@panix.com> wrote in message news:gdpqme$qog$4@reader1.panix.com...
>
> (yet another reason why I rarely get invited to meetings)

With apologies to Rod Stewart, "Some guys get all the luck."


MCM

<docdwarf@panix.com> wrote in message news:gdpqme$qog$4@reader1.panix.com...
> In article <6mb2poFfhdk0U1@mid.individual.net>,
> Pete Dashwood <dashwood@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>Given that he can't get permission from anyone to quote from the 85
>>Standard, doesn't that kind of imply he could quote from it with impunity?
>
> Mr Dashwood, have you been paying no attention at all? He clearly stated
> that he did not want to 'quote from it with impunity'...
>
> ... he said he wanted to 'quote from it with a copy-and-paste'.
>
> (yet another reason why I rarely get invited to meetings)
>
> DD

You're welcome at any of my meetings any time, Doc :-)

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."

On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:24:05 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
<dashwood@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:

>>> This is sad. I remember you being one of the first to advocate it, many
>>> years ago. Times and people change.
>
>Don't get me wrong, I respect your right to change your mind (and, in this
>instance, I certainly don't blame you). My sadness was at seeing enthusiasm
>turn to apathy. I know it happens all the time, but it is always sad in my
>book.

I don't get sad when someone's enthusiasm changes direction over time.
Open CoBOL was interesting for a while, but there are other directions
that seem to have more opportunities for productive enthusiasm.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

In article <zJ_Lk.2800$pr6.1724@flpi149.ffdc.sbc.com>,
Michael Mattias <mmattias@talsystems.com> wrote:
><docdwarf@panix.com> wrote in message news:gdpqme$qog$4@reader1.panix.com...
>>
>> (yet another reason why I rarely get invited to meetings)
>
>With apologies to Rod Stewart, "Some guys get all the luck."

From http://www.bartleby.com/73/1992.html :

--begin quoted text:

AUTHOR: Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)

[snip]

You make your own luck, Gig.

--end quoted text

DD

In article <6mbdatFg4s31U1@mid.individual.net>,
Pete Dashwood <dashwood@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>
>
><docdwarf@panix.com> wrote in message news:gdpqme$qog$4@reader1.panix.com...
>> In article <6mb2poFfhdk0U1@mid.individual.net>,
>> Pete Dashwood <dashwood@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>>Given that he can't get permission from anyone to quote from the 85
>>>Standard, doesn't that kind of imply he could quote from it with impunity?
>>
>> Mr Dashwood, have you been paying no attention at all? He clearly stated
>> that he did not want to 'quote from it with impunity'...
>>
>> ... he said he wanted to 'quote from it with a copy-and-paste'.
>>
>> (yet another reason why I rarely get invited to meetings)
>
>You're welcome at any of my meetings any time, Doc :-)

According to the hourly rate and reimbursement package you've offered me,
Mr Dashwood, quite the opposite seems so.

DD

Hello everyone,

I've patched this post together from the plethora of responses.

----
From William:
As to getting "official permission" to cut & paste text from the
existing (2002)
Standard, The correct place to get such permission is from either
INCITS or
ISO. (I would sugest using INCITS.) You can get contact information
from their
webpage. I would suggest that you quote the text from the cover page
and word
the "request" as a CONFIRMATION request that you may do the cut&paste
based on
those words.
----

Thanks, I will follow that path

----
From William:
There is, however, another question when it comes to wording for a
"reference
manual". What do you plan on doing about EXTENSTION language that is
in
OpenCOBOL, e.g.
COMP-3
RETURN-CODE
etc

The normal/common language for describing these is NOT part of the
Standard
document. If you want to you MIGHT be able to use "short" quotations
from IBM,
Micro Focus, etc manuals - if you provide proper attribution for
them.
----

Yeah I'll avoid any form of cut'n'paste that is not from a document
that
allows (in writing) such an action. For the extenstions, I'm more
than
willing to write those from scratch and the open source code

----
From William:
What do you mean by "Standards Comliance"? Are you talking about
confirming to
the LANSI/ISO COBOL Standard (i.e. not using any language extension
constructs)?
or
Are you talking about "coding style" Standards? If it is the latter,
then I
wish you a LOT OF LUCK!. You can look thru the comp.lang.cobol
"archives" to
see exactly HOW varied are the views of what is and is not "good
style" for
COBOL coding. I am certain that if you have suggestions/opinions on
what
should be included in such a document and made them available to CLC,
you
would get lots of
- agreement and disagreement
- suggestions of things to add
- suggestions of things to remove
----

I'm originally thinking about a ISO COBOL spec compliance document,
but a
style guide is in the works.

The add1tocobol team is going to bash each other over the head on
source
style and conventions. We'll try for best-practice (40+ years of
experience
and lots of programmer opinions to learn from and worry about). I'm a
fan of
freedom of choice when it comes to style and then a little bit more
strict
rules when it comes to "substance", but again, for us, this is a work
in
progress.

----

From Pete:
Vendors of COBOL have a right to Copyright to protect their
considerable
investment in software and documentation (it would be wrong to cut and
paste
from an IBM manual, for instance, especially without permission or
attribution) but the STANDARD is not supposed to belong to any
particular
person or body. (I think that was the gist of your objection over the
proposed removal of the Disclaimer from the Standards document, wasn't
it,
Bill?)

I have to say, if it were me undertaking such an exercise, I'd go
ahead and
use the '85 standard. But that's easy for me to say, sitting in a
remote
Pacific island with no formal assets anyone could sue me for :-)

It just strikes me as a shame that someone of good intent has all
these
obstacles and red tape to overcome, with so many grey areas it just
makes it
non-viable. You would forgive the OP for giving up.

----

I'm never going to cut'n'paste from a document unless I am sure that
it is
safe to do so. And yes, this does seem to be a layer of mystical
red-tape. I can understand why, money men being who they are, and
I
agree that people should be paid for work they want to get paid for.
So
I'm being very careful. This thread is opening my eyes ... and I'll
keep
them open. And for now, I'm not giving up. If I have to write an 800
page
reference manual from scratch ... so be it. I'm lazy, but I'm
also
keen to see OpenCOBOL flourish.

----
From James:

I don't get sad when someone's enthusiasm changes direction over time.
Open CoBOL was interesting for a while, but there are other directions
that seem to have more opportunities for productive enthusiasm.

----

My interest in OpenCOBOL is just starting. So far we've added
wrappers to
libCURL and OpenCOBOL can now act as a simplistic wget fetching
files off
the 'net. I wrote it with the OC1.1 tarball URL and filenames used by
default if no other command line options are given.

Rildo Pragana's Tcl/Tk wrapper is being upgraded from TinyCOBOL to
OpenCOBOL. It's working fine, but still needs some polish.

SQLite is wrapped and gives an OC developer the same engine used as
the
sqlite> prompt, including the .mode html .mode tcl etc meta commands.

SpiderMonkey core javascript is functional linked to an OpenCOBOL 1.1
build. (core javascript means core classes - no DOM access of course)
but that may change soon as I unravel the tkhmtl widget. tkhtml will
allow OpenCOBOL controlled web browsing and the first tests have
worked
out ok.

Others are about to publish pgSQL, libDBI and cob_perl bindings.

Early work with GTK+ wrappings are in progress, but access to the Tk
GUI
makes that less important (for now).

And there are other libraries that are being examined ... along with
access to PIPED system calls for file access.

I've coded an in-source documentation utility (currently using
ReStructuredText as the markup). The current ocfaq.html is generated
from ReST sources. And Pandoc is used to convert the ReST to Texinfo
for the core OC info docs.

POSIX Message Queues are functional.

gnuplot (external) scripting has passed proof of concept and works
great.

CGI programs have passed proof of concept and we are in the midst of
building up copybooks to ease using OpenCOBOL for running websites.

OC has been built and is running on an ISP host.

SCREEN SECTION is now built into the compiler.

Rildo's report generator extension should pass first layer testing
soon.

And more ...

----
From Jimmy:

I've made the remark before and you then commented that I 'persuaded'
you to have an interest. That was then, this is NOW. The OP can
confirm
- but basically Open COBOL stopped dead at COBOL 85 but I think they
have since added some useful features from COBOL 2002. But the one you
and I are most interested in - OO - zippo. I very much doubt they want
to or have the capacity to embrace that. They maybe dedicated
hobbyists,
but it's only with the objective of making money that the 'real'
compilers exist. That is not to denigrate their efforts - but I hope
it
clarifies my position.
----

In order to support User FUNCTON, (I can't speak for Roger, but I do
from time to time), we've been discussing the move toward exposing the
prototype engine of the compiler. That will be a first step to
Object OpenCOBOL as well.

Thank you gentlemen. This is all very good information. I have some
pondering to do and some emails to send. In the meanwhile, OpenCOBOL
gets better and better every week.

For now I'll be focusing on code examples, extensions and the
OpenCOBOL
FAQ. (FAQ is perhaps a misnomer ... "information grabbag" would be a
more appropriate title).

Thanks again everyone,
I'm pleasantly surprised with the level of detail (and not-so-
surprised
to hear there has been some in-fighting). Only passionate people
bother
with in-fighting.

Cheers,
Brian Tiffin