From: iscjcw@uccvma.ucop.edu (Jerry Wilcox)
Newsgroups: alt.cobol
Subject: Re: Hello, anybody out there ?
Followup-To: alt.cobol
Date: 21 Jan 1993 17:41:52 GMT
Organization: University of California, Office of the President
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: ajax.ucop.edu

In article <1993Jan20.232429.10611@shared.com>, mikek@shared.com (Mike
Kenny) wrote:
> 
> 1. don't real COBOL programmers have access to news ? (or do the
>    sysadms not tell 'em about it ?)

As the manager of a large group of COBOL programmers (and, btw, a *real*
COBOL programmer myself), my answer to this is NO, we don't give most of
our programmers, be they COBOL, PL/I, or whatever, access to news. Why?
Because news access is a timesink and my folks have better things to do
than spend large chunks of the day reading alt.sex or rec.whatever. I'll go
a step further and say that at many companies where I've consulted, the
programmers have no internet access at all. Even where they do have access
to news, it is restricted, and one of the *very* common restrictions is
that access to the "alt" groups is totally blocked.

> 2. don't COBOL programmers that do have access take pride in what
>    they do ? (or are they daunted by the fact that they are expected
>    to produce useful products rather than discuss theories ?)

Most COBOL programmers are expected to produce, and at a very high level,
at least in my experience. If the content of a news group were worthwhile,
it might actually help to have them read it. I can't, however, afford to
have all of my people spending chunks of time posting the 87th response to
"COBOL is a piece of crap, why aren't you programming in MODULA-2" or other
messages of that ilk. Unfortunately, that's most of the contents of
alt.cobol.

> 3. don't C programmers have anything better to do than read this
>    group ? (according to their stated views even looking at
>    alt.cobol should be considered digital necrophilia)

I don't know what C programmers have to do. C is a language that I really
don't like, primarily because so much of it is totally unreadable, even to
the person who wrote it last week. (Yes, I do know C). Even given that this
is my opinion of the language, I don't go over to comp.lang.c and post
flames asking why they don't program in a better language, such as PASCAL
or ADA. Seems to me they should afford COBOL programmers the same courtesy.

> 4. why isn't the serious COBOL community raising hell over not
>    having comp.lang status ? (maybe that explains why this group
>    is so quiet, all the interested people are looking for
>    comp.lang.cobol)

Given that most COBOL programmers probably don't really know that
newsgroups exist, who is going to raise this hell?

> 5. Why is there, with the exception of some recent postings, no
>    input from the COBOL manufacturers. I would have expected this
>    to be considered a cheap advertising medium and good PR.
> 

For many products, monitoring and responding to newsgroups is good PR. I
firmly believe that many of the COBOL vendors (Tandem being a major
exception) are unaware of the existence of newsgroups. Couple that with the
fact that alt.cobol is and comp.lang.cobol isn't and I think you have your
answer.


-----------
Jerry Wilcox - iscjcw@uccvma.ucop.edu
All opinions expressed are MINE -- I'd have a different job if the
University wanted me to speak for it.