Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1400

Hank Oredson ... snip ...

I had a similar experience about a dozen years ago with a COBOL 68 system. That was the type without the ability to pbutt parameters, and nothing but global variables. So I faked it. IIRC the source reduction was closer to 66%, not to mention the readability and improved functionality (which I could create after cleaning it up).

This had two main components, a data entry component, and a check-printing component, and involved a database system. The first thing I fixed was the amusing way in which a terminal failure (i.e. pulled power plug etc.) could permanently destroy the employees existance in the database. Then annual maintenance (tax rates, deductions, etc.) had required someone to read and understand the monster and rebuild several areas. Over the years this had resulted in much copying of code blocks. Instead I built this into the database with a privileged means of altering it. After that came the cosmetic things, such as clarity to the operator, meaningful error messages, etc.

When I first rolled this out I found out that you can't round properly. Employees were screaming that they had been grossly cheated out of pennies, because things no longer were double rounded, or at least carried guard digits. So I put back the old erroneous technique.

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