Slashdot Mirror
COBOL IDE, Compiler for Linux
Grizzly writes "Okay, go ahead and laugh. But there's a lot of COBOL out there, and that has kept a lot of businesses, especially outside the United States, from even looking at Linux. Linux and Main has a story on KOBOL and how it might make bringing those COBOL apps over to Linux possible."
It sucks but when you are a medium sized company with huge amounts of Cobol applications running on a mainframe which you are paying huge amounts of money for you have to do something.
Those Cobol applications are things that my transportation agency count on to do buisness, like the payroll system, and the parts maintence system for all the busses.
We are looking at $450,000 to renew the lease on the mainframe in two years, or we can port the applications to our Unix environment that we already have and tell IBM what they can do with their mainframe.
Its much easier and more cost effective to bring the code over nearly as-is versus migrating to a new language entirely.
Or at least don't disrespect the programmers. Someday when we're all creaky it'll be hard to find a job doing C++ or Java or Perl or C#. Sure, we know those are fine languages for many things, and we've got 40 years of experience using them. Sure we are still sharp and can code rings around almost anybody. We even probably still feel young inside and if we're lucky only need the regular strength viagra. (EXTRA strength viagra is for OLD people).
But there it is on the resume - you did C++ programming 25 years ago, and in the eyes of the young'ins, that makes you unemployable. I've worked with enough people with many decades of experience to know that these people can be the sharpest ones in an organization, even if their experience includes COBOL.
I know this is offtopic, but I can predict what some of the comments are going to say.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
While it's true that cobol is often associated with legacy programs, cobol programs are a niche market, one that linux could exploit (recompile your cobol app for linux and save!). So far, linux growth has mostly been at the expense of other unix rather than cutting into the desktop (windos) market. I'm not suggesting that linux or x86 hardware can compete with mainframes, but a modern x86 box running linux could replace a mainframe for some cobol apps.
Additionally, scary as it sounds, ne wCobol development is still being done. A company I used to work for sold (and still sells) expensive bank software written in cobol and using Tandem SQL.
If it gets the job done, it gets the job done. That applies to linux and cobol.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Unfortunately a COBOL compiler isn't enough. Other applications which are specific to mainframes would also need to be implemented. Here's two examples:
* VSAM -- IBM's keyed file format. It's simplistic in concept, but manages keyed files very well. A relational DB might be better, but you'd still have to convert the code.
* IMS -- IBM's hierarchical database. The syntax isn't declarative like SQL, but much more intent on moving a pointer throughout the database.
* Other OS calls.