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Day of the Dead: Cobol as a flesh-eating zombie
Link: Cobol Coders: Going, Going, Gone?.
Just kidding about the necrosis. Here is yet another piece of research that shows just how far from dead Cobol is. Its not just about maintenance - on the contrary there is plenty of fresh meat out there.
We're gradually migrating away from it. Oh sure you are. Brains...
| by James Governor | October 16, 2006 Permalink |
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» Cobol: a death language? from SDLC Blog
A recent survey, conducted by Computerworld at 352 companies, revealed that a lot of them are still using Cobol actively.
A lot of people have said they were going to get rid of the mainframe, but that hasn’t happened. And for us, all that cod... [Read More]
Tracked on Oct 21, 2006 7:38:02 PM
Comments
COBOL is an acronym, and should be written in all caps. COmmon Business Oriented Language.
Posted by: Charlie Quidnunc | Oct 16, 2006 1:34:42 PM
How about CoBOL? :-)
I never really understood why people thought there was a pressing need for yet another programming language (YAPL). Those arguments do seem rather quaint and pointless from a 2006 perspective, don't they? COBOL is a perfectly fine language with a lot of positive attributes, durability, and, like English, it's plenty "good enough" even though in somebody's opinion Esperanto might be the "perfect" language. COBOL is also quite approachable, so plenty of people can learn it (and do) every year. And it has evolved quite nicely, with object-oriented features, XML parsing and generation, etc.
I do think IBM should upgrade COBOL to a full 64-bit language. I applaud IBM's WebSphere Developer for zSeries which makes COBOL as easy as Visual BASIC (but of course with mainframe qualities of service in the results). And how IBM has made the great programming language debates irrelevant by offering first class implementations of all the popular programming languages (such as Java), all from the same open source Eclipse-based workbench. Anybody who writes Java or C/C++ is already a mainframe developer.
Posted by: Timothy | Oct 16, 2006 10:27:09 PM
I agree with all the points you made, Tim.
Also, if the COBOL programmers were paid what they are worth, there wouldn't ever be a shortage of them. If it gets lucrative enough in the future, I may go back to it after 25 years in systems programming! :-)
Bob
Posted by: Bob Richards | Oct 17, 2006 8:40:15 AM
Good point, Bob, and I've been making a related point to customers - the economics of COBOL say that if there was truly a critical shortage, COBOL programmers would be making a LOT more than they are now. The fact that COBOL'ers aren't making $200K/yr tells me that either a) there's no shortage, or b) there's a US shortage, but it's being made up via overseas resources, etc.
If the "problem" reaches a critical stage, the needs will be met. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to write code - COBOL is a relatively simple language. As Timothy points out, there's nothing wrong with COBOL, it has the necessary features, and there are tools out there now to make it even easier to write in.
The *real* issue isn't COBOL, it's the business knowlege & expertise that's locked up in the current crop of developers. Those 55/60-yr-old COBOL guys are retiring with a wealth of business accumen and knowledge of their applications. Companies must start hiring and training their replacements NOW, before all those smarts walk out the door and move to Florida...
Posted by: Bill Seubert | Oct 18, 2006 9:04:21 AM
Bill,
Sorry for the "I agree" response, but you hit the nail on the head. Imagine all of the mentoring that ISN'T taking place.
Posted by: Bob Richards | Oct 19, 2006 8:36:21 AM
