Is your dislike of COBOL really a problem with the language or with the way people wrote the programs you had to work with? I used to like the language. For solving business tasks I used to be able to generate working COBOL code in very reasonable time periods that still compares well to how long it takes to solve similar problems today. My main problem was trying to find and fix bugs in the spaghetti code that the program authors had developed for a set of business rules that had long since changed and which were never documented. I am willing to bet if you let those same people code C or Perl like they coded COBOL that anyone who was introduced to those languages while assigned with working on programs developed like I just mentioned would develop a dislike for the language in question. Have a good weekend. -- Mark D Powell -- -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Mladen Gogala Sent: Friday, May 28, 2004 4:13 PM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Useful Oracle books - C.J. Date theory vs. practicality On 05/28/2004 03:43:04 PM, Lex de Haan wrote: > Hi Jared, > > the difference becomes apparent if you try a condition like the following: > > 'Mort Subite' = NULL > > This condition is neither TRUE nor FALSE; it evaluates to UNKNOWN. > > According to three-valued logic, NOT UNKNOWN evaluates to UNKNOWN; > therefore, both statements will execute their ELSE branch; > so the first one executes statement 2, and the second one executes statement > 1. > > My math teacher (many moons ago) usually would say at this point: QED. Note: This message is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient. Wang Trading LLC and any of its subsidiaries each reserve the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the message states otherwise and the sender is authorized to state them to be the views of any such entity. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------