Re: Windows/Macro Language Info?

> That was applicable 20 years ago and is applicable today
> and will be applicable tomorrow.

Just over 20 years ago PCs were mostly single-user floppy disk
machines. MS-DOS was a jumped up version of CP/M that had the inferior
FAT file system from a 1977 BASIC machine strapped to it.  Executing
utilities from a Cobol program usually resulted in running out of
memory and may result in open files being corrupted even if the rather
poor SHARE was loaded in later versions.

Yes, checking files after every update and backing up was entirely
applicable to those systems. Writing your own programs rather than
attempting to execute utilities under Cobol control was sensible, even
essential.  If you are still using DOS and/or FAT then that will still
be applicable because you will still have a crap system. Your advice
may even be 'better' for anyone else using DOS and/or FAT.

However, most of us are no longer stuck in a time warp that requires
such mechanisms. I did use CP/M (and MP/M) and other 8 bit systems in
the late 70s/early 80s and know what most of the limitations were, I
avoided MS-DOS entirely, but used (non-MS) DOS based multiuser systems
and Unix which had reliable file systems and usable command line
utilities that could do things in background or automatically and
didn't have the problems from 20 years ago that you still try to avoid.