From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Cobol Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 01:47:40 +0200 Message-ID: <86bmnnt277.fsf@zoho.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1502408917 18990 195.159.176.226 (10 Aug 2017 23:48:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 23:48:37 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4 (gnu/linux) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Aug 11 01:48:33 2017 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1dfxBo-0004N5-MG for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 11 Aug 2017 01:48:32 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60329 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dfxBr-0002Cl-Ox for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:48:35 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:49364) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dfxBD-0002CA-Kn for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:47:58 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dfxB9-0002Kx-LW for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:47:55 -0400 Original-Received: from [195.159.176.226] (port=58121 helo=blaine.gmane.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dfxB9-0002Id-F9 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:47:51 -0400 Original-Received: from list by blaine.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1dfxAz-0001cd-3u for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 11 Aug 2017 01:47:41 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Mail-Followup-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-Lines: 66 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org Mail-Copies-To: never Cancel-Lock: sha1:veuwzyVz5RiK02oZJcamcIaTNPU= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 195.159.176.226 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:113977 Archived-At: After getting a book, "COBOL from Pascal" [1] I've started with Pascal, I mean Cobol, which is almost as old as Lisp. COBOL is from 1959 while the original LISP is from 1958, with CL and Elisp more recent editions from the mid-80s. However despite being almost exactly as old, Lisp is timeless whereas Cobol really shows its age, and everything about it seems really old. The best way to learn a new language is 1) get a book and 2) get an Emacs mode. Step 2 offered somewhat of a surprise as there is no built in Emacs mode for Cobol! The is a mode in the ELPA which is called cobol-mode.el. (Actually, it is the only hit I get for "cobol" in both ELPA and MELPA!) Here is what the package tells us, first paragraph: This file should not be confused with Rick Bielawski's cobol-mode.el (http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/cobol-mode.el), which this mode attempts to supersede. That's generous, but it sounds like Mr. Bielawski's mode is more developed and/or used. This is not an uncommon thing. For example, there is a built-in web browser in vanilla Emacs, the `eww', however the Japanese-made 3rd-party Emacs w3m browser is at this stage another caliber of software. To add to the confusion, in the Emacs Wiki, on the Cobol mode [2], it says The most recent cobol-mode is now available on ELPA and is the most up-to-date and featureful of the available cobol-modes. So what mode should one use? I'm trying out both right now... (and it is irritating they are both called the same) And if the ELPA mode really is better, why not include it in vanilla Emacs since it is just one file of 81K? Programming modes should always be included, one would think. [1] @book{cobol-from-pascal, author = {A. J. Tyrrell}, ISBN = {978-0-333-48303-9}, publisher = {Macmillan}, title = {COBOL from Pascal}, year = 1989 } [2] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CobolMode -- underground experts united http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573