In this section the author gives a brief history of several
programming practices. Following the discussion of each practice,
a "rule" is given that, if followed, will help a COBOL
programmer to write programs which are free of the influence of
these past practices.
As was mentioned in the previous section, these rules are
divided into five categories: general formatting practices, and
practices which are unique to each of the four COBOL DIVISIONs.