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Don't Count Cobol Out

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the great-disturbance-in-the-force dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Although Turing Award-winning computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra once said, 'the use of Cobol cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense,' Michael Swaine has an interesting entry to Dr. Dobb's Journal asserting that Cobol is the most widely used language in the 21st century, critical to some of the hottest areas of software development today, and may be the next language you'll be learning. In 1997, the Gartner Group estimated that there were 240 billion lines of Cobol code in active apps, and billions of lines of new Cobol code are being written every year. Cobol is a key element in the realization of modern distributed business software architecture concepts — XML/metadata, Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture — and e-business."

3 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Cobol defeated da Terminator by schwaang · · Score: 5, Informative

    Gov. Schwarzenegger ordered a cut in pay to California state workers, and was told that it would be impossible to implement because the payroll system is in Cobol and nobody can touch it.

    Sounded like political bull to me, but then again...

    1. Re:Cobol defeated da Terminator by red_dragon · · Score: 5, Informative

      000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
      000200 PROGRAM-ID.     KILL-SARAH-CONNOR.
      000300
      000400*
      000500 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
      000600 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
      000700 SOURCE-COMPUTER. SKYNET.
      000800 OBJECT-COMPUTER. T-800.
      000900
      001000 DATA DIVISION.
      001100 FILE SECTION.
      001200
      100000 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
      100100
      100200 MAIN-LOGIC SECTION.
      100300 BEGIN.
      100400     PERFORM UNTIL SarahConnorIsDead.
      100500         FIND SARAH CONNOR.
      100600         SHOOT SARAH CONNOR.
      100700     END-PERFORM.
      100800 MAIN-LOGIC-EXIT.
      100900     EXIT.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
  2. Re:Why is Cobol hated? by nawcom · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can someone give me a side-by-side example of C and Cobol program or statement to do the same thing which would illustrate why Cobol is so "evil"?

    C (No bells or whistles): http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-c-116.html

    COBOL (or as I call it, COBALD): http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-cobol-1820.html