a word about COBOL
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There was recently a posting in the Lounge about Language Popularity, and one "sub-topic" regarded COBOL ... here's some information about where COBOL stands in the world today ... think I'll hang on to my MicroFocus COBOL books after all ... COBOL Financial Services[^] Some quotes from the story: COBOL has some interesting issues. Take OOP, for example – often thought to be the killer issue for COBOL. But Netron was producing object frameworks in COBOL-74 even before C++ arrived in business. ... And there’s still a lot of COBOL about although it seems hard to pin down the precise amount of it actually in use today (perhaps because a lot of it is in mission-critical financial systems, that owners don't want to talk about). A tutorial from the University of Limerick Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) quotes Gartner estimates for 2002 of about two million COBOL programmers world-wide compared to about one million Java programmers and one million C++ programmers. ... Similarly, IBM quotes “generally accepted statistics” to the effect that 70 per cent of the world's business data is still being processed by mainframe applications written in COBOL (with an estimated 30 billion COBOL transactions are processed daily, more than the number of total web pages viewed in the same period) ...
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There was recently a posting in the Lounge about Language Popularity, and one "sub-topic" regarded COBOL ... here's some information about where COBOL stands in the world today ... think I'll hang on to my MicroFocus COBOL books after all ... COBOL Financial Services[^] Some quotes from the story: COBOL has some interesting issues. Take OOP, for example – often thought to be the killer issue for COBOL. But Netron was producing object frameworks in COBOL-74 even before C++ arrived in business. ... And there’s still a lot of COBOL about although it seems hard to pin down the precise amount of it actually in use today (perhaps because a lot of it is in mission-critical financial systems, that owners don't want to talk about). A tutorial from the University of Limerick Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) quotes Gartner estimates for 2002 of about two million COBOL programmers world-wide compared to about one million Java programmers and one million C++ programmers. ... Similarly, IBM quotes “generally accepted statistics” to the effect that 70 per cent of the world's business data is still being processed by mainframe applications written in COBOL (with an estimated 30 billion COBOL transactions are processed daily, more than the number of total web pages viewed in the same period) ...
Douglas Troy wrote:
University of Limerick
You're kidding, right? There's really a university by that name? Offering degrees in riddles and rhymes?
Douglas Troy wrote:
COBOL has some interesting issues.
In my dabbling in it ages ago, I thought it was a fine language for what it's designed to do. But I'm not sure I'm designed to write in COBOL. Marc Pensieve Functional Entanglement vs. Code Entanglement Static Classes Make For Rigid Architectures Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson
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Douglas Troy wrote:
University of Limerick
You're kidding, right? There's really a university by that name? Offering degrees in riddles and rhymes?
Douglas Troy wrote:
COBOL has some interesting issues.
In my dabbling in it ages ago, I thought it was a fine language for what it's designed to do. But I'm not sure I'm designed to write in COBOL. Marc Pensieve Functional Entanglement vs. Code Entanglement Static Classes Make For Rigid Architectures Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson
I never quite got what a code 88 was in COBOL when it was explained to me. I did however understand that I would never be interested in that language. :laugh: Jeremy Falcon
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Douglas Troy wrote:
University of Limerick
You're kidding, right? There's really a university by that name? Offering degrees in riddles and rhymes?
Douglas Troy wrote:
COBOL has some interesting issues.
In my dabbling in it ages ago, I thought it was a fine language for what it's designed to do. But I'm not sure I'm designed to write in COBOL. Marc Pensieve Functional Entanglement vs. Code Entanglement Static Classes Make For Rigid Architectures Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson
Marc Clifton wrote:
You're kidding, right? There's really a university by that name? Offering degrees in riddles and rhymes?
:laugh:
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There was recently a posting in the Lounge about Language Popularity, and one "sub-topic" regarded COBOL ... here's some information about where COBOL stands in the world today ... think I'll hang on to my MicroFocus COBOL books after all ... COBOL Financial Services[^] Some quotes from the story: COBOL has some interesting issues. Take OOP, for example – often thought to be the killer issue for COBOL. But Netron was producing object frameworks in COBOL-74 even before C++ arrived in business. ... And there’s still a lot of COBOL about although it seems hard to pin down the precise amount of it actually in use today (perhaps because a lot of it is in mission-critical financial systems, that owners don't want to talk about). A tutorial from the University of Limerick Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) quotes Gartner estimates for 2002 of about two million COBOL programmers world-wide compared to about one million Java programmers and one million C++ programmers. ... Similarly, IBM quotes “generally accepted statistics” to the effect that 70 per cent of the world's business data is still being processed by mainframe applications written in COBOL (with an estimated 30 billion COBOL transactions are processed daily, more than the number of total web pages viewed in the same period) ...
I am not surprised to hear that at all. A friend of mine is working for a Swiss bank - and pretty much everything there is COBOL on mainframes.
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
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There was recently a posting in the Lounge about Language Popularity, and one "sub-topic" regarded COBOL ... here's some information about where COBOL stands in the world today ... think I'll hang on to my MicroFocus COBOL books after all ... COBOL Financial Services[^] Some quotes from the story: COBOL has some interesting issues. Take OOP, for example – often thought to be the killer issue for COBOL. But Netron was producing object frameworks in COBOL-74 even before C++ arrived in business. ... And there’s still a lot of COBOL about although it seems hard to pin down the precise amount of it actually in use today (perhaps because a lot of it is in mission-critical financial systems, that owners don't want to talk about). A tutorial from the University of Limerick Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) quotes Gartner estimates for 2002 of about two million COBOL programmers world-wide compared to about one million Java programmers and one million C++ programmers. ... Similarly, IBM quotes “generally accepted statistics” to the effect that 70 per cent of the world's business data is still being processed by mainframe applications written in COBOL (with an estimated 30 billion COBOL transactions are processed daily, more than the number of total web pages viewed in the same period) ...
Whether we like to admit it or not, old established applications are not going to be replace any time soon. For business, it seems to be COBOL; for manufacturing, Fortran. I have been working at manufacturing sites since 1986 and they use Fortran on OpenVMS systems for mission-critical applications - and mission critical means, if it don't run, the product ain't made!
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I never quite got what a code 88 was in COBOL when it was explained to me. I did however understand that I would never be interested in that language. :laugh: Jeremy Falcon
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
what a code 88 was in COBOL
They are pretty similar to enums in C or C++. They let you associate a mnemonic with a value for some variable and to be able to check for that value using the mnemonic. :) Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] When I want privacy, I'll close the bathroom door. [Stan Shannon] BAD DAY FOR: Friendly competition, as Ford Motor Co. declared the employee parking lot at its truck plant in Dearborn, Mich., off limits to vehicles built by rival companies. Workers have to drive a Ford to work, or park across the street. [CNNMoney.com] Nice sig! [Tim Deveaux on Matt Newman's sig with a quote from me]
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There was recently a posting in the Lounge about Language Popularity, and one "sub-topic" regarded COBOL ... here's some information about where COBOL stands in the world today ... think I'll hang on to my MicroFocus COBOL books after all ... COBOL Financial Services[^] Some quotes from the story: COBOL has some interesting issues. Take OOP, for example – often thought to be the killer issue for COBOL. But Netron was producing object frameworks in COBOL-74 even before C++ arrived in business. ... And there’s still a lot of COBOL about although it seems hard to pin down the precise amount of it actually in use today (perhaps because a lot of it is in mission-critical financial systems, that owners don't want to talk about). A tutorial from the University of Limerick Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) quotes Gartner estimates for 2002 of about two million COBOL programmers world-wide compared to about one million Java programmers and one million C++ programmers. ... Similarly, IBM quotes “generally accepted statistics” to the effect that 70 per cent of the world's business data is still being processed by mainframe applications written in COBOL (with an estimated 30 billion COBOL transactions are processed daily, more than the number of total web pages viewed in the same period) ...
we mis-interprete the hype as new languages are developed. It's quite true that as new languages are released, these languages will be used for new development. But it is quite untrue that all existing applications written in older languages immediately become unusable. Like most machines, they have been designed to perform some function and as long as that function is required by a business, these applications will still run. Additionally, since most machines require maintenance support, these applications also require this. So yes the number of people actively developing in COBOL is likely extremely small, but the number of people still maintaining COBOL applications is only going to shrink when the applications are finally thrown away, not when some new language has been invented. Oh and this doesn't just apply to COBOL. I'd suggest that it is just as applicable to all languages presently in use. Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] When I want privacy, I'll close the bathroom door. [Stan Shannon] BAD DAY FOR: Friendly competition, as Ford Motor Co. declared the employee parking lot at its truck plant in Dearborn, Mich., off limits to vehicles built by rival companies. Workers have to drive a Ford to work, or park across the street. [CNNMoney.com] Nice sig! [Tim Deveaux on Matt Newman's sig with a quote from me]
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There was recently a posting in the Lounge about Language Popularity, and one "sub-topic" regarded COBOL ... here's some information about where COBOL stands in the world today ... think I'll hang on to my MicroFocus COBOL books after all ... COBOL Financial Services[^] Some quotes from the story: COBOL has some interesting issues. Take OOP, for example – often thought to be the killer issue for COBOL. But Netron was producing object frameworks in COBOL-74 even before C++ arrived in business. ... And there’s still a lot of COBOL about although it seems hard to pin down the precise amount of it actually in use today (perhaps because a lot of it is in mission-critical financial systems, that owners don't want to talk about). A tutorial from the University of Limerick Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) quotes Gartner estimates for 2002 of about two million COBOL programmers world-wide compared to about one million Java programmers and one million C++ programmers. ... Similarly, IBM quotes “generally accepted statistics” to the effect that 70 per cent of the world's business data is still being processed by mainframe applications written in COBOL (with an estimated 30 billion COBOL transactions are processed daily, more than the number of total web pages viewed in the same period) ...
Douglas Troy wrote:
a word about COBOL
isn't this an oxymoron ?
Maximilien Lincourt Your Head A Splode - Strong Bad
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Jeremy Falcon wrote:
what a code 88 was in COBOL
They are pretty similar to enums in C or C++. They let you associate a mnemonic with a value for some variable and to be able to check for that value using the mnemonic. :) Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] When I want privacy, I'll close the bathroom door. [Stan Shannon] BAD DAY FOR: Friendly competition, as Ford Motor Co. declared the employee parking lot at its truck plant in Dearborn, Mich., off limits to vehicles built by rival companies. Workers have to drive a Ford to work, or park across the street. [CNNMoney.com] Nice sig! [Tim Deveaux on Matt Newman's sig with a quote from me]
Chris Meech wrote:
They are pretty similar to enums in C or C++. They let you associate a mnemonic with a value for some variable and to be able to check for that value using the mnemonic.
Ok, that makes it much more clear. Needless to say, the person that told me about them didn't know C/C++ or any other language for that matter. It didn't go quite so well. :-D Jeremy Falcon
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Douglas Troy wrote:
University of Limerick
You're kidding, right? There's really a university by that name? Offering degrees in riddles and rhymes?
Douglas Troy wrote:
COBOL has some interesting issues.
In my dabbling in it ages ago, I thought it was a fine language for what it's designed to do. But I'm not sure I'm designed to write in COBOL. Marc Pensieve Functional Entanglement vs. Code Entanglement Static Classes Make For Rigid Architectures Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson
Marc Clifton wrote:
There's really a university by that name? Offering degrees in riddles and rhymes?
There was a university of Limerick The degrees were quite a trick You program in Cobol or maybe even Snobol And any archaic job is your pick. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Whether we like to admit it or not, old established applications are not going to be replace any time soon. For business, it seems to be COBOL; for manufacturing, Fortran. I have been working at manufacturing sites since 1986 and they use Fortran on OpenVMS systems for mission-critical applications - and mission critical means, if it don't run, the product ain't made!
Tim Carmichael wrote:
Fortran on OpenVMS systems for mission-critical applications
You will find Fortran and OpenVMS used in other industries for the same reasons. I still convert a fair amount of code from Fortran to C/C++ and one person will never finish it, even if my entire team was dedicated to the effort of replacing Fortran at this one location, it would not be finished before my retirement (I am 40). It takes a long and dedicated effort to replace an existing supported language. Even now, every project has to be evaluated as to whether it should keep the old code and simply add new code, in Fortran, or C++ ... or if the old code should be rewritten in a new language. That is not an easy question to answer, even though it sounds like it should always be one answer, realistically it cannot be examined that way, the risks, and the costs have to be weighed. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Tim Carmichael wrote:
Fortran on OpenVMS systems for mission-critical applications
You will find Fortran and OpenVMS used in other industries for the same reasons. I still convert a fair amount of code from Fortran to C/C++ and one person will never finish it, even if my entire team was dedicated to the effort of replacing Fortran at this one location, it would not be finished before my retirement (I am 40). It takes a long and dedicated effort to replace an existing supported language. Even now, every project has to be evaluated as to whether it should keep the old code and simply add new code, in Fortran, or C++ ... or if the old code should be rewritten in a new language. That is not an easy question to answer, even though it sounds like it should always be one answer, realistically it cannot be examined that way, the risks, and the costs have to be weighed. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Yes indeed. FORTRAN is still heavily used by the US military and in scientific computing. Much of the heavy duty supercomputer number crunching is still done with FORTRAN. I remember that in the September 11th attack on the Pentagon one of the areas heavily damaged held a whole bunch of VAXes and shortly thereafter the going rate for used VAX machines skyrocketed.
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Douglas Troy wrote:
a word about COBOL
isn't this an oxymoron ?
Maximilien Lincourt Your Head A Splode - Strong Bad
lol, nice. I think he meant... HERE_IS_AN_ARTICLE_REGARDING_COBOL :-D -- modified at 17:30 Tuesday 21st March, 2006
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There was recently a posting in the Lounge about Language Popularity, and one "sub-topic" regarded COBOL ... here's some information about where COBOL stands in the world today ... think I'll hang on to my MicroFocus COBOL books after all ... COBOL Financial Services[^] Some quotes from the story: COBOL has some interesting issues. Take OOP, for example – often thought to be the killer issue for COBOL. But Netron was producing object frameworks in COBOL-74 even before C++ arrived in business. ... And there’s still a lot of COBOL about although it seems hard to pin down the precise amount of it actually in use today (perhaps because a lot of it is in mission-critical financial systems, that owners don't want to talk about). A tutorial from the University of Limerick Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) quotes Gartner estimates for 2002 of about two million COBOL programmers world-wide compared to about one million Java programmers and one million C++ programmers. ... Similarly, IBM quotes “generally accepted statistics” to the effect that 70 per cent of the world's business data is still being processed by mainframe applications written in COBOL (with an estimated 30 billion COBOL transactions are processed daily, more than the number of total web pages viewed in the same period) ...
Hi. As a COBOL developer, I think I can give a little insight into this. I have been developing in COBOL since 1989. Alongside COBOL, you get CICS/DB2/JCL etc. which if you research, you will this is far more advanced than most people think (and has been for many years). For example; ASP.Net & HTTP are purely a reinvention this technology - it has been around for a long time (CICS). I also code websites but the first choice is still mainframe/Cobol/CICS/DB2 – that’s where the most money is. You might see pretty GUI frontend to many online banks – but ever wondered what actually runs in the background and processes all your transactions? Its not all about the language - its also about what this actually does and if you are processing millions of transactions on a daily basis – nothing can come close to the processing power of a Mainframe combined with the structuring of Cobol/CICS/DB2 applications. Just knowing COBOL doesn’t get you anywhere - but if you have a few years experience with Cobol/CICS/DB2/JCL – your at a good starting point but then you need specialist knowledge into applications which are written in these languages. p.s. nearly every transaction make using your visa or mastercard / book a train ticket / take money out of an ATM / book an airline ticket (and so on..); your data will go through a COBOL program.