Die COBOL... Die!!
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Big Daddy Farang wrote:
But why develop anything new using it or its demon seed?
Because it works, and works great! Not for scientific applications, which have entirely different needs than business apps. If you would program some business apps, you would see it's benefits. I programmed in FORTRAN, and it SUCKS for business operations. It's not dead, because it still twiddles bits efficiently, just as COBOL does for business apps. I ran a COBOL shop that had no system crashes - NOT ONE! - in the 5 years I was there. A program would "abend", but the OS kept going. All other running programs never knew anything happened. No reboots, no blue screens of death. I can't even keep a stable development environment today, what with Fix Packs, new versions of tools, new versions of OS, etc., etc. I spend too much time being a sys-admin on my own machine. A waste of time. (Installed latest MS fixes last week - now XP crashes 2-3 times a day. Explorer crashed yesterday, Outlook crashed this morning. This is DUMB.) Half the day there was no "system operator". Maybe we should convert that shop to Windows and a real language like Visual Basic (cough, choke, puke), hire two system admins to keep it running, then more programmers to get the same amount of coding done because it is guaranteed to take longer to find and fix obtuse bugs. COBOL coders don't relate to pointers because they don't have them. How many coding errors involve pointers? Any guesses? So, the cost of conversion is not the issue. Most companies have computers to get work done. Changing platforms and languages to get the same work done, not better work but same work differently, is JUST PLAIN STUPID. The IT department is a COST center, not a profit center. All additional costs take away from the bottom line, meaning less money to expand, provide raises, grow, buy new hardware, bosses new car, etc.
ghle wrote:
Because it works, and works great! Not for scientific applications, which have entirely different needs than business apps. If you would program some business apps, you would see it's benefits. I programmed in FORTRAN, and it SUCKS for business operations. It's not dead, because it still twiddles bits efficiently, just as COBOL does for business apps.
Agree 100 per cent. Use the right tool for the job.
ghle wrote:
A program would "abend", but the OS kept going.
But isn't that what's supposed to happen? Isn't that due to the OS being competent to protect itself? From what I've seen of various Windows systems, they are not. As you said later...
ghle wrote:
Installed latest MS fixes last week - now XP crashes 2-3 times a day.
I'm no fan of Windows, I just happen to use it some. My machine at work has XP Pro and while I have my share of problems with it, I've never had it crash. If you spend any time in the Lounge, you know that many people have horrible problems caused by Vista while others sing its praises. How can we explain such a wide variety of experiences with these operating systems? Maybe they're not really operating systems. Maybe they're just over-priced toys. Probably your crash-free COBOL shop was using a more solid operating system.
ghle wrote:
Maybe we should convert that shop to Windows...
That's a good one. :laugh:
ghle wrote:
COBOL coders don't relate to pointers because they don't have them. How many coding errors involve pointers? Any guesses?
Not sure where that came from. My guess would be a huge number of them. Most programming languages can cause damage in the hands of incompetents.
ghle wrote:
the cost of conversion is not the issue
Well it is prohibitive. I've never said we should convert existing, stable, running code. But I would make an exhaustive search for a better tool for new development. Failing to find one, I'd use COBOL if it truly is the best tool for the job. Thanks for telling us about your COBOL experiences. It's been an interesting learning experience, this thread. BDF
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Without looking it up on Google does anyone in this thread even know what the COBOL acronym stands for? Steve :laugh:
Compiles Only Because Of Luck? Completely Obsolete BOLlocks? Changes Occasionally But Operationally Lazy? Got Any More?
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Talking on another thread we end up talking about COBOL and finding that IBM (at least) if developing a OO version of this ancient language. The very first question is: WHY? Shouldn't it be easier to learn/use a new good OO language instead of reinventing the wheel on some prehistoric (1950) concept? What should be worst: * Converting COBOL code to another language (I don't mean reverse engineer it, grab the business logic and recode the whole thing)? * Recompile it somehow (thinking that this OO version is somehow backwards compatible) with a OO facelift compiler but stay in the mud? I don't know... this feels like a very few group of people (compared to the developers community) trying not to loose their jobs and keep earning too much money developing and patching restrictive, but most very important, software. Here I leave some links: http://home.swbell.net/mck9/cobol/ooc/ooc.html Hurts my fingers to publish this link... You may also get nasty about this one (COBOL on .net): http://www.dotnetheaven.com/Articles/ArticleListing.aspx?SectionID=16
I think the real question is why anyone would want to make an "object oriented" version of COBOL. I have been programming for 30+ years now, and I can't count all the wonderful innovations I have seen come and go. Exactly one of them -- structured programming -- was actually an advance over what went before. I am sure this will ignite a firestorm of rage and recrimination, but as far as I can see, OO is a fancy shmancy name for wasting a whole lot of time dancing around before you design your data structures and subroutine libraries (OOPs, I mean "classes" and "methods"). There is really nothing you can do with Oh-Oh that you can't do with a good assembler. Well, I should qualify that. Nothing useful. Obviously, there is always money to be made selling old wine in new bottles. I have learned and forgotten a Babel of languages, and at this point what I want from a language is for it to Get Out Of The Way and let me work on the problem. Visual Basic comes closest, so naturally they are pulling the plug on it.
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droolin wrote:
There's nothing that can be expressed easily in Cobol, as far as I remember.
Must be you never did any complex logic in Cobol. Cobol can do in 3 lines what takes several routines / libraries and lots of code to do in C, C#, C++. When you need to process data, Cobol is the answer. It was designed for that purpose. When you want pretty GUI's, stay away because it was not designed for that. Example, opening a single join-file, which is actually 10 different physical files to us, pull out appropriate data records, and write output to a report. One or two lines of code opens the join file (10 files) "OPEN OUTPUT CUSTOMER-JOIN-FILE.", matches all indexes ala SQL but much simpler, gives appropriate input and output. Plus it runs FAST. It is stupid to throw a GUI on it just because you can. More code just to show a progress bar. Why? So the user has something to look at? That's dumb in console applications. It takes longer to run, just so you can show them it is not done yet. In Windows, the GUI is it's own thread. Process data in that thread and the GUI is non-responsive. Add overhead to create other threads, more code = more bugs. I grew up on machine code, assembly and C - great for running real-time machine controls. Stop the processor, change a couple of words of memory to patch a bug, then start the processor where you left off. Great stuff that most people can't understand. I have done business operations in C and Cobol, and I'll take Cobol over C for THAT purpose any day. Also, realize that not all people grasp software as us here on CP. I know programmers that don't know how a computer works. They like "ADD 1 to INDEX" instead of "i++" or "++i" or "i+=1" or "i = i+1". Give em one why to do it, period (please don't forget the period!). Patch a program? They can't do it. They don't understand debuggers to any depth, and have difficulty debugging their programming errors because they see what they want to see, not what is actually there. I ran a shop where the entire department was like that - honest. I'd debug code without ever looking at the code. Not all Cobol coders are like that (me, for instance), but I saw my share of em. Give em C++ or JAVA and they'll need to get another job. Gary
ghle wrote:
Also, realize that not all people grasp software as us here on CP. I know programmers that don't know how a computer works. They like "ADD 1 to INDEX" instead of "i++" or "++i" or "i+=1" or "i = i+1". Give em one why to do it, period (please don't forget the period!). Patch a program? They can't do it. They don't understand debuggers to any depth, and have difficulty debugging their programming errors because they see what they want to see, not what is actually there. I ran a shop where the entire department was like that - honest. I'd debug code without ever looking at the code. Not all Cobol coders are like that (me, for instance), but I saw my share of em. Give em C++ or JAVA and they'll need to get another job.
Well put. I think one thing that we need to keep in mind here is that not everybody is operating at the same level. For example - I spent the first 8 or 10 years of my career doing mostly O/S level coding in FORTRAN (believe it or not), C and Assembly (on PC's). The next 10 or so was in between where I wrote my own User Interface code for my software (under DOS). In that case I was doing both "systems level" and business code - in C at that point. The last 10 or so years I finally went GUI (thank you VB) and do mostly business-level coding there. While I have been in the lower layers in the past I'm now no longer as concerned with that as I am solving the business problems. I'll do the GUI stuff to the point where I respond to some events but I don't want to dive too deep. My point in saying all that is that we all sometimes tend to paint these situations with too broad a brush and think that everyone is operating at the same level we are. As you aptly pointed out that just ain't so. That's why I think that the "Kill COBOL" (substitute any technology for COBOL there) attitude is wrong. I never wrote COBOL myself because I thought it too "wordy" - but that was because I was interested in writing device-driver code then. -CB :)
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Big Daddy Farang wrote:
But why develop anything new using it or its demon seed?
Because it works, and works great! Not for scientific applications, which have entirely different needs than business apps. If you would program some business apps, you would see it's benefits. I programmed in FORTRAN, and it SUCKS for business operations. It's not dead, because it still twiddles bits efficiently, just as COBOL does for business apps. I ran a COBOL shop that had no system crashes - NOT ONE! - in the 5 years I was there. A program would "abend", but the OS kept going. All other running programs never knew anything happened. No reboots, no blue screens of death. I can't even keep a stable development environment today, what with Fix Packs, new versions of tools, new versions of OS, etc., etc. I spend too much time being a sys-admin on my own machine. A waste of time. (Installed latest MS fixes last week - now XP crashes 2-3 times a day. Explorer crashed yesterday, Outlook crashed this morning. This is DUMB.) Half the day there was no "system operator". Maybe we should convert that shop to Windows and a real language like Visual Basic (cough, choke, puke), hire two system admins to keep it running, then more programmers to get the same amount of coding done because it is guaranteed to take longer to find and fix obtuse bugs. COBOL coders don't relate to pointers because they don't have them. How many coding errors involve pointers? Any guesses? So, the cost of conversion is not the issue. Most companies have computers to get work done. Changing platforms and languages to get the same work done, not better work but same work differently, is JUST PLAIN STUPID. The IT department is a COST center, not a profit center. All additional costs take away from the bottom line, meaning less money to expand, provide raises, grow, buy new hardware, bosses new car, etc.
ghle wrote:
Half the day there was no "system operator". Maybe we should convert that shop to Windows and a real language like Visual Basic (cough, choke, puke), hire two system admins to keep it running, then more programmers to get the same amount of coding done because it is guaranteed to take longer to find and fix obtuse bugs.
I've found XP to be extremely stable myself - not sure why you're having so many problems - and I run all kinds of development tools - VS6, VS.Net, the works. I think the only time I've had real stability problems was if I was constantly installing and uninstalling stuff.
ghle wrote:
I can't even keep a stable development environment today, what with Fix Packs, new versions of tools, new versions of OS, etc., etc. I spend too much time being a sys-admin on my own machine. A waste of time. (Installed latest MS fixes last week - now XP crashes 2-3 times a day. Explorer crashed yesterday, Outlook crashed this morning. This is DUMB.)
VB *IS* a real development language. I maintain a large system that is written 60% in VB and it "just works". Normally you only run into a lot of problems with it only if you're using a lot of 3rd-party stuff (custom controls) that aren't reliable. VB/Access (SQL Server) is pretty powerful for developing top-flight software in the PC environment. -CB
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COBOL was near-enough OO, anyway, so it wouldn't take much work. And I really, really miss my 88 lines!
I don't miss them at all. The syntax was easy enough, but having to have a static working storage section and fd still bothers me. Annoying still was having to define the memory spaces (pic x9) and not having the ability to call an instance of an object (in leau of a subclass). :mad: While syntactically, java and C++ may be more cryptic, the flexability that they bring to the table far outway the negatives that the steeper learning curve incurs. If oo COBOL could keep its syntax, but add flexability in it's file structure, then it would be worth it. (think VB classic with inheritance).
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Geez man, in my firm we are still developing things in COBOL. These are windows gui programs with COBOL backend, well usually around 15 - 20.000 lines of code, all global variables. Shivers :sigh: The problem is, as usually, the human factor. :sigh: People who have learned COBOL some 30-40 years ago, and have never learned anything besides it, today simply cannon program in anything else. Add that to the fact that in these cases the manager is also a COBOL dinosaur, and you have a COBOL development today... But, sometimes there can be a light in this tunnel... :-) Luckily, I managed to persuade the managers that COBOL for .NET :omg: is simply not the way to go. New development is now done in C# while COBOL experts are maintaining legacy applications. And, BTW, if you have never programmed in COBOL you can not really hate it. After programming in it you start to understand what the word hate means... :mad: BTW, where is that other thread?
Dragan Matic wrote:
Luckily, I managed to persuade the managers that COBOL for .NET is simply not the way to go. New development is now done in C# while COBOL experts are maintaining legacy applications.
Why not? Can't you see it? Visual Cobol.Net. Sounds good to me. -CB :)
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If memory serves, 'C' came from 'B' which derived from BCPL which came out of the University of Waterloo I think. -CB
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Without looking it up on Google does anyone in this thread even know what the COBOL acronym stands for? Steve :laugh:
Take a look for more informations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL
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Talking on another thread we end up talking about COBOL and finding that IBM (at least) if developing a OO version of this ancient language. The very first question is: WHY? Shouldn't it be easier to learn/use a new good OO language instead of reinventing the wheel on some prehistoric (1950) concept? What should be worst: * Converting COBOL code to another language (I don't mean reverse engineer it, grab the business logic and recode the whole thing)? * Recompile it somehow (thinking that this OO version is somehow backwards compatible) with a OO facelift compiler but stay in the mud? I don't know... this feels like a very few group of people (compared to the developers community) trying not to loose their jobs and keep earning too much money developing and patching restrictive, but most very important, software. Here I leave some links: http://home.swbell.net/mck9/cobol/ooc/ooc.html Hurts my fingers to publish this link... You may also get nasty about this one (COBOL on .net): http://www.dotnetheaven.com/Articles/ArticleListing.aspx?SectionID=16
It seems every 3 years there is some new "software thang" to do under the sun. But at the end of the day it's the same old BS. You still gotta parse, you still gota interface to the os and api's. The syntax may change but it's just the same ole bull bucky. Who cares if they add OO enhancements to COBOL. Who really cares anymore... -- modified at 11:58 Monday 27th August, 2007
Old Turd Visual FORTRAN Coder, MrPlankton
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ghle wrote:
Also, realize that not all people grasp software as us here on CP. I know programmers that don't know how a computer works. They like "ADD 1 to INDEX" instead of "i++" or "++i" or "i+=1" or "i = i+1". Give em one why to do it, period (please don't forget the period!). Patch a program? They can't do it. They don't understand debuggers to any depth, and have difficulty debugging their programming errors because they see what they want to see, not what is actually there. I ran a shop where the entire department was like that - honest. I'd debug code without ever looking at the code. Not all Cobol coders are like that (me, for instance), but I saw my share of em. Give em C++ or JAVA and they'll need to get another job.
Well put. I think one thing that we need to keep in mind here is that not everybody is operating at the same level. For example - I spent the first 8 or 10 years of my career doing mostly O/S level coding in FORTRAN (believe it or not), C and Assembly (on PC's). The next 10 or so was in between where I wrote my own User Interface code for my software (under DOS). In that case I was doing both "systems level" and business code - in C at that point. The last 10 or so years I finally went GUI (thank you VB) and do mostly business-level coding there. While I have been in the lower layers in the past I'm now no longer as concerned with that as I am solving the business problems. I'll do the GUI stuff to the point where I respond to some events but I don't want to dive too deep. My point in saying all that is that we all sometimes tend to paint these situations with too broad a brush and think that everyone is operating at the same level we are. As you aptly pointed out that just ain't so. That's why I think that the "Kill COBOL" (substitute any technology for COBOL there) attitude is wrong. I never wrote COBOL myself because I thought it too "wordy" - but that was because I was interested in writing device-driver code then. -CB :)
We are on the same wavelength here.
CodeBubba wrote:
I never wrote COBOL myself because I thought it too "wordy"
I used to think the same, before my COBOL days. However, I'm a 60+WPM typist now (thank you COBOL?) and most COBOL characters are on the normal keys. I have to stop and look every time I need curly braces, ampersands, exclamations,...!
CodeBubba wrote:
we all sometimes tend to paint these situations with too broad a brush
Sorry for VB comments. Here *I* am using the broad brush. :-O I actually support a Basic business system running on SCO Unix written years ago. Can't say I enjoy it, but it does the job. I've used VBA on occasion Bubba - Did you miss the adventures of the CPM world? :laugh: Oh my, I was programming RTOS 15 years before the PC was invented by IBM (remember when IBM used to build PC's). Now, it's Embedded VC++ on MS Mobile, doing voice, WiFi, GPS, printer drivers and Auto Id. Too many GUI problems and concerns - have to dive deep into GUI land. The main thread is now GUI, all else is secondary. Opposite of yesterday. Less fun, but cooler. Interesting note comparing this industry to others. If I were a welder 75 years ago, I could still use the same basic equipment and be proficient today. Looking for a job? VC++ doesn't cut it. Everyone wants C#, JAVA, or COBOL. Thank goodness for CP. I'll bet you can look at a DDL header and explain what each byte is used for. X| Thanks for the comments. Gary
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ghle wrote:
Half the day there was no "system operator". Maybe we should convert that shop to Windows and a real language like Visual Basic (cough, choke, puke), hire two system admins to keep it running, then more programmers to get the same amount of coding done because it is guaranteed to take longer to find and fix obtuse bugs.
I've found XP to be extremely stable myself - not sure why you're having so many problems - and I run all kinds of development tools - VS6, VS.Net, the works. I think the only time I've had real stability problems was if I was constantly installing and uninstalling stuff.
ghle wrote:
I can't even keep a stable development environment today, what with Fix Packs, new versions of tools, new versions of OS, etc., etc. I spend too much time being a sys-admin on my own machine. A waste of time. (Installed latest MS fixes last week - now XP crashes 2-3 times a day. Explorer crashed yesterday, Outlook crashed this morning. This is DUMB.)
VB *IS* a real development language. I maintain a large system that is written 60% in VB and it "just works". Normally you only run into a lot of problems with it only if you're using a lot of 3rd-party stuff (custom controls) that aren't reliable. VB/Access (SQL Server) is pretty powerful for developing top-flight software in the PC environment. -CB
CodeBubba wrote:
not sure why you're having so many problems
Win2K and XP were both very stable, until this latest set of updates. No new hardware or software, just a half-dozen updates. Waiting for the next updates. I've got EVC++ 3 and 4, and VS, and am impressed with their reliability. However, the total crash tends to loose settings in EVC that I have to readdress at start-up.
CodeBubba wrote:
VB *IS* a real development language.
Yes, in the proper hands. Broad-brushing here, there are too many noobies that think they are software developers because they can write a VB program. In the right hands, I'm sure it is very powerful. I've used VBA with Access with success. Never considered it for major projects (I don't like run-time interpreted code/new bugs at run-time - my personal bias). Gary
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Close approximation... I don't know but how long is a decimal number in COBOL? The wrong rounding operations relate specially to the language specification and to the CPU direct calculations. Most languages I had problems with it they (the problems) started at the 12th decimal place... being COBOL implemented on the financial area, is this really an issue or a relevant motive?
AlexCode wrote:
I don't know but how long is a decimal number in COBOL?
The key is that COBOL doesn't have to use floating point. The developer determines it's usage. COBOL uses integer arithmetic (makes it extremely fast) that has NO accuracy problems. The decimal point is tracked separately, numbers are normalized before calculations are performed. There are no rounding problems. BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) numbers are not easily expressed in "modern" languages. Each byte contains the numbers 0 through 9. A 16-digit number requires 16 bytes, a 7-digit number requires 7. Sign is encoded in the MSD, or is separate.
AlexCode wrote:
COBOL implemented on the financial area, is this really an issue or a relevant motive?
Errors are errors, 12 decimals or not. If you're calculating hourly/daily interest on my 10 gadzillion dollars, I want any error to benefit me, not you.
AlexCode wrote:
The wrong rounding operations relate specially to the language specification and to the CPU direct calculations.
Not necessarily true. It also has to do with how the code is written. Writing a lot of accounting programs (C, VC++ (on handhelds - slow processors), I never use floating point. All is done in integer arithmetic, with the decimal point normalized as required. Explaining why is normally an exercise in frustration. Nice thread, BTW. Gary
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I think the real question is why anyone would want to make an "object oriented" version of COBOL. I have been programming for 30+ years now, and I can't count all the wonderful innovations I have seen come and go. Exactly one of them -- structured programming -- was actually an advance over what went before. I am sure this will ignite a firestorm of rage and recrimination, but as far as I can see, OO is a fancy shmancy name for wasting a whole lot of time dancing around before you design your data structures and subroutine libraries (OOPs, I mean "classes" and "methods"). There is really nothing you can do with Oh-Oh that you can't do with a good assembler. Well, I should qualify that. Nothing useful. Obviously, there is always money to be made selling old wine in new bottles. I have learned and forgotten a Babel of languages, and at this point what I want from a language is for it to Get Out Of The Way and let me work on the problem. Visual Basic comes closest, so naturally they are pulling the plug on it.
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Right... Most arguments are based on the cost of rewriting code. Ok... most software can be hard to recode but not impossible and money well count I don't know what can be more expensive, maintain the dinosaur or kill it and replace it with a brand new Porsche. Note that Porsches still have problems, you have to learn a whole new way of driving, it's expensive to buy... but wouldn't you be happier dealing with a Porsche? Wouldn't it be easier to buy new parts? etc... :-> Why grab the damn dinosaur and stick 4 wheels on hes feet?
Okay, I wasn't going to weigh in on this but now you're mixing your metaphors here or something... You wouldn't replace a dinosaur with a Porsche... a horse maybe but not a Porsche. What you might replace with a Porsche is your '57 Chevy with the large block V8. And the thing is, when you put it in this context you realize that while there might be good reasons to buy that Porsche and retire the Chevy (better gas mileage, easier to find parts), the Chevy is still a thing of beauty, was a wonderful ride while it lasted, and actually got you to where you were going when you needed it to. What gets me about a lot of the posts on this thread is the disrespect for those things that paved the way to where we are today. We're not actually talking about dinosaurs here just older versions or types of the tools we use to build the software we get paid to build. Your average carpenter today doesn't use hand saws much but the good ones who only had hand saws and other hand tools to use built some pretty solid houses that are still standing today. Let's not disparage the old tools or the workers just because the trade has evolved and some things (not all) are easier to do with the new tools. Carl
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If memory serves, 'C' came from 'B' which derived from BCPL which came out of the University of Waterloo I think. -CB
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Compiles Only Because Of Luck? Completely Obsolete BOLlocks? Changes Occasionally But Operationally Lazy? Got Any More?
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Why be so intolerant about a language you know little (or nothing) about? I have programmed in at least a dozen languages, and each has it good points and bad. Variety is the spice of life.:-O
I would have written hundreds of COBOL programs, my first in 1969 (COBOL was not my first language). 'Variety is the spice of life'. Maybe, but it doesn't help businesses get working systems. With the advent of the minicomputer, and then the PC, thousands of programmers came on to the market with the aim to 'play' with the latest languages. It still happens today.
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It seems every 3 years there is some new "software thang" to do under the sun. But at the end of the day it's the same old BS. You still gotta parse, you still gota interface to the os and api's. The syntax may change but it's just the same ole bull bucky. Who cares if they add OO enhancements to COBOL. Who really cares anymore... -- modified at 11:58 Monday 27th August, 2007
Old Turd Visual FORTRAN Coder, MrPlankton
MrPlankton wrote:
Who really cares anymore...
Unfortunately, only those hiring new developers. They don't care what you know or how good you are, they care what new "software thang" you know. Wanted to hire, software engineer with the following qualifications: o 3 years Vista experience o 2 years Windows Mobile 6.0 experience o 1 year VS 2008 experience, o 5 years AJAX development in a major project, o Associate CS degree or equivalent
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It happens... But I still don't have an explanation why they didn't work. My main intent with this thread is to understand what's so good about COBOL that really makes the difference. Like you said "... just didn't work", why? * Wrong new language chosen? * Bad new language implementation? * 50 years old COBOL developers with no experience on another language? * UI? * What?! :doh:
In the olden days, when we were developing COBOL programs in a batch environment, we had to learn techniques that placed a very rigid coding and testing discipline on us. For example, when I first started in programming (1964 ), we used to get one compile and test per day. You made sure that the changes you put in were correct and you got as much out of each test as you could. Nowdays, programmers adopt the infinite number of tests approach - find an error, correct it and try again. They are usually working on their own where we used to work more in teams. With changes coming to the industry so fast, programmers wanting to keep up with the latest and greatest, abandon what they are doing and move on to fresh fields. It's good for them, but it doesn't help get the job done.