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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."
Another very attractive cobol tool that runs on linux (and windows, and Solaris, and so on) is PerCobol from LegacyJ.As the name would indicate its a java solution.
http://www.legacyj.com/lgcyj_perc1.html
My agency has had a developer trying to get Merants Cobol working on a Solaris system for some time now and hasn't had any luck getting it to connect to Oracle. All the instructions we could find refer to DB2, even those where incomplete. Merant was not willing to support us since we purchased the software directly from Sun.
I couldn't find any instructions on getting Kobol to connect to Orable either, but its still a pretty new product so I will be revisiting it later. But with PerCobol it took about 1 hour to figure it out. (this is including the 30 minutes it took to download the 100mb evaluation copy).
The cost of PerCobol is MUCH higher than Kobol's $39.95. Its more like 5000 dollars per developer (if you are deploying to a Solaris server which we are). But it still looks really good compared to what we have experianced with Merant and we can redeploy the mainframe applications to java applettes on our intranet with PerCobol with little trouble.
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.
This identical question has already been answered in the original article.
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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.
If it really is, then bravo. You've made the right decision. In my experience however, most people making this decision haven't taken into account the complete cost of these applications. More than the absurb hardware maintenance costs, there is an elevated cost for running batch-oriented applications. How many times a week does a human have to intervene overnight when a job fails? How much does that human cost you per hour in salary, benefits, office space, etc?
My point is that mainframes and the applications designed for them were built under the assumption that an hour of human time is orders of magnitude cheaper than an hour of computer time. Now, especially with high power to cost ratio systems like Linux/x86, that ratio has inverted. It's now much cheaper to let computers do the repetitive work and send the humans home. You might be able to save enough to justify spending nearly half a million dollars on some quality people to rewrite those applications for you.
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.
We have a front-end implemented mostly in C and Java running under Win2K and Solaris. The GUI is just Java and it sucks big time.
See my journal, I write things there
Women.
I've been in computers 20+ years, and worked with all sorts of different platforms and languages. For some reason, there are more women who program in COBOL than in any other language.
You guys in the ultra-geeky C++ shops, look around. What's the ratio of males to females? In most COBOL shops, it's equitable. I've even worked in places where there were more women than men.
I've recently interviewed for a job elsewhere in my organization where I'd be swapping mostly COBOL and a little Java for full-time Java, SOAP, etc. Sounds like a much cooler job... but this group is off in another building, and there's only one woman. Don't get me wrong, I'm happily married... but I like having women around.
So what if all the women will look like Grace Hopper soon? I'll look like Hume Cronyn.
Programming needs women. Go COBOL!
Garg
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters