Random memory

[pne]

I remember the final exam for my Ausbildung; part of it was writing a program in COBOL.

Not sitting in front of a terminal, oh no: we got to use nice coding forms which helpfully marked the important columns for us (including at least 6 and 72, IIRC). Those programs would later be transcribed by data entry people and run through a compiler; we'd get back the error listing and be given one chance to correct syntax errors (including mistakes the data entry person may have introduced). The programs would never actually be run; they'd be judged by a person looking over the source code.

We got to use as many sheets as we wanted, and we didn't have to fill one sheet up before going onto the next one, so we could use one sheet per subroutine, for example. (Our teacher had given us the tip to start each subrouting with a '/' in... I think it was column 1, to start a new page in the compiler listing as well.)

I thought it was fun! Taking the assignment, turning it into an algorithm and then into a program, then writing that down. Whee. I'm sure there were others who had different opinions :)

---

And also: we got a letter the other day telling us we earn 31% more than we should, given the place we're living in. Fortunately for us, those who earn up to 35% over the mark still get the full subsidy (the subsidy towards the rent is reduced in two steps for those earning 35%–60% or more than 60% over), so I expect our rent won't go up as a result. (They check your income again every three years or so to determine whether or how much subsidy to provide.)

Comments

[nitaq.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I remember Cobol, but I absolutely HATED it!
And we had those lovely sheets as well.
I was done with Cobol the day they introduced "display spaces upon CRT"
which should be CLR or CLRSCR or PRINT HEX(03).
Cobol is worse than ANY other language I've ever encountered.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I was done with Cobol the day they introduced "display spaces upon CRT"
which should be CLR or CLRSCR or PRINT HEX(03).

Ah well. I think that isn't even "real COBOL"... we never even did ACCEPT or DISPLAY or other display-oriented things: we did nice old-fashioned batch processing, reading in a file and writing out another file.

It's just from another generation.

But the verbosity of the typing can sometimes be a bit tedious... ADD FOO TO BAR GIVING BAZ. takes longer than baz = foo + bar;.

I didn't mind it too much :)

[entirelysonja.livejournal.com]

And also: we got a letter the other day telling us we earn 31% more than we should, given the place we're living in. Fortunately for us, those who earn up to 35% over the mark still get the full subsidy (the subsidy towards the rent is reduced in two steps for those earning 35%–60% or more than 60% over), so I expect our rent won't go up as a result. (They check your income again every three years or so to determine whether or how much subsidy to provide.)

I've been meaning to comment on this since you wrote it -- I find it amazing that someone in your kind of job can live in subsidized housing in Germany.

Here in the US, subsidized housing is usually only available to people who make very little money, less than someone with your qualifications would be making if they were working in their field. It's always interesting to see how differently things are done in other countries!

[pne.livejournal.com]

*nods* It's not "§5 housing", though -- I do earn too much for that. (For example, the flat I had originally planned to move into when I moved out of my parents' I couldn't take because I didn't meet the criteria for a §5-Schein, and I was only in my Ausbildung back then.)

I'm not entirely sure what the deal is with these houses, but yeah, it is subsidised and that does apply to us even though we earn a decent amount of money.