Subj : COBOL
To   : ERROL CASEY
From : Dumas Walker
Date : Tue Jun 03 2025 10:49:00

> Do you do any COBOL on linux? I try and stay away from Windows. So when you sa
> PC, I'm assuming windows ... but maybe your PC runs linux :-)

Actually, in my case PC = DOS.  ;)  I played around a little a long time
ago with COBOL under linux... just enough to get a "hello world" type
program working... but I don't remember which compiler I used.

What I mostly have used PC COBOL for is for writting a few companion
programs for my old GT Power BBS, which runs on DOS.  Most recently I wrote
one to create a Last 10 callers bulletin.  Also wrote one to create
DOOR.SYS/DORINFO files for it so I can run door games that wouldn't work
otherwise.

> I thought I may look at it, and play around if I can find time and see if any

It looks like gnuCOBOL is the go-to package for COBOL under Linux.  That is
likely the one that I used when I tried it.  I have not been so tempted to
do things with it under linux vs. DOS because, with linux, it seems like
whenever I want to do something, a utility already exists for that purpose.
 If it doesn't, I can always use "pipe" to string together a command line
using a couple (or more!) utilities to get the job done.

With all of the *nix and BSD utilities that are included, it is difficult
for me to find a task that they cannot handle.  ;)


 * SLMR 2.1a * The penalty for bigamy is having two mothers-in-law.
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