Re: Newbie question on table design.

"-CELKO-" <jcelko212_at_earthlink.net> wrote in message news:1178134141.097373.219430_at_y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> >> In the later days of COBOL and file based applications, record
definitions were stored in libraries, and referenced by COBOL source programs. These record definition libraries eventually grew into active data dictionaries. <<
>
> The later days of COBOL??!! I hate to tell you this, but 75%+ of all
> commercial code on Earth is in COBOL. "Reports of my death are
> exaggerated." -- Mark Twain
>
> They are not called libraries; they are called "copy books" because
> that is exactly what they are -- text for cut and paste.
>

I beg your pardon, but they *were* called "libraries" in TOPS-10/20 COBOL circles.
And they functioned like libraries.

> The copy books have are no constraints, no DRI actions and if you read
> a file with one DATA DIVISION from a copy book, it can cheerfully cut
> up the bytes and fit them into that template without an error. My
> favorite horror story from QDB was a hospital that hung an MRI mag
> tape on a patient report application. The records in both files began
> with the patient id and that was all that was validated. It ran.
>
> I seem to remember that data dictionaries first appeared outside of
> COBOL as part of the Structured Programming/ Structured Analysis
> movement. Yourdon, Gane & Sarson, Warnier_Orr, etc. methods defined
> a simple model that then grew over time when we got interactive
> development tools.
>
Interactive development tools, for me, go all the way back to 1963. What time frame are you talking about? Received on Wed May 02 2007 - 22:26:51 CEST