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From: Allodoxaphobia <trepidation@example.net>
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Subject: Re: COBOL and tricks
Date: 23 Jul 2022 23:50:45 GMT
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On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 19:32:03 -0000 (UTC), Lew Pitcher wrote:
>
> This development occurred in a large (1000+ branch) banking environment.
> When we got specs from the users, they were along the lines of
>   you MULTIPLY the ACCOUNT BALANCE by the MONTHLY INTEREST RATE,
>   giving the INTEREST ADJUSTMENT.
>   you then ADD the INTEREST ADJUSTMENT to the ACCOUNT BALANCE,
>   giving the ADJUSTED ACCOUNT BALANCE.
> which a programmer might convert into
>   MULTIPLY ACCOUNT-BALANCE BY MONTHLY-INTEREST-RATE GIVING INTEREST-ADJUSTMENT.
>   ADD INTEREST-ADJUSTMENT TO ACCOUNT-BALANCE GIVING ADJUSTED-ACCOUNT-BALANCE.
>
> The convenience was that the user's description /was/ the program code.

Good luck finding white collar droids 
now-a-days that can write that clearly!

Ya, a couple hundred years ago I was a programmer in a corporate-captive 
service company that did the data processing for 25 or so branch banks.
Did PL/1 and assembler -- mostly on the systems side versus applications.
The specs that came down for projects was always well defined and detailed.

I don't think that's the case these days.

Jonesy