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COBOL Turning 50, Still Important
Death Metal writes with this excerpt from a story about COBOL's influence as it approaches 50 years in existence:
"According to David Stephenson, the UK manager for the software provider Micro Focus, 'some 70% to 80% of UK plc business transactions are still based on COBOL.' ... Mike Gilpin, from the market research company Forrester, says that the company's most recent related survey found that 32% of enterprises say they still use COBOL for development or maintenance. ... A lot of this maintenance and development takes place on IBM products. The company's software group director of product delivery and strategy, Charles Chu, says that he doesn't think 'legacy' is pejorative. 'Business constantly evolves,' he adds, 'but there are 250bn lines of COBOL code working well worldwide. Why would companies replace systems that are working well?'"
Why would companies replace systems that are working well?
So I can have a fucking job?
I'm guessing that this story involves enough java to float a battleship; but not quite enough to keep the interface responsive...
have you heard about object oriented cobol?
It's called ADD 1 TO COBOL GIVING COBOLPLUSONE
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
That's what I get get for learning FORTRAN in college rather than COBOL...
at least my mad HTML skills..
oh wait... all websites are in FLASH or PHP now...
DOH!
Ok.. im going back to watch a movie on my Betamax or HD-DVD player....
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
add more Java
Hey, you're right! That really is the solution!
Think of it this way. If Apple came out with a new iHeart would you have surgery to replace your perfectly functioning heart with an artificial one just so you can play mp3s?
Apple's marketing department thought about that long and hard. Then they shrugged and acknowledged that the risk was too great. If they killed off their nosiest fanboys in a mishap, where would they be then? There's not much of a future selling iTunes off bottlecaps from Pepsi bottles.
Only one problem....
Your modifications may have sped up the operation on the desktop, but once running on the server *with other software* it could cause other problems.
I bet you did not even consider the extra latency that your access pattern would cause when combined with rotational delay. If his code was well written then it could run faster on the server as the data will be accessible immediately (the loops timed so the drum would always be in the correct position for a read).
With your 'modifications' you'd need another couple of Williams tubes as cache to avoid spending all your time waiting for drum sync.
My doctors discover that I have cancer and I will die, unless they put me into suspended animation and freeze me and the cancer so it does not spread until they can find a cure. But I have to sign an agreement that in order to pay for the cure and suspended animation I have to agree to work a job for the company that sponsors the cure and freezing.
So I sign, and wake up in 9999 AD and they cure my cancer.
I go to human resources for the company that paid for my freezing and cure and the HR director says:
"So, Orion Blastar, I see you are a computer programmer and I also see that you know COBOL. We have a Y10K problem and need to make all of our programs work with five digit years. You'll be spending the rest of your life debugging COBOL programs to solve the Y10K problem."
COBOL is not a dead language, it is an undead language like a Zombie or Vampire it is very hard to kill, as well as hard to work with.
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