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Join COBOL's Next Generation
jfruh writes "COBOL, it's finally becoming clear, isn't going away any time soon; there are far too many business-criticial applications written in it that work perfectly well for that to happen. This reality could be a career boon for IT staff. Need to learn the ins and outs of COBOL? Your employer may well pay for your training. Just getting started in IT? COBOL can provide a niche that gets you a first job."
Keeping them employed until retirement age.
No sig today...
I will also add that the reason it's so hard to get rid of is that most software written in COBOl tends to be a tangled mess that can't be easily split up and decoubled, replacing parts with more modern, usable languages. It tends to be an all or nothing venture. It has very little, if anything to do with it being the best language for the job.
not a lot of fun to program in. It's wordy, it's procedural...generally kind of boring. But...it's imbedded in so many mission critical systems. The ERP system that I work on is chock full of COBOL stuff, mainly in the Payroll processing modules. It works, it's really fast, and nobody wants to mess with it. Sure, you could rewrite it in Java or some other language but it represents risk that many companies are not willing to take.
COBOL programmers are in big demand now and it's only going to grow. I'm not sure how many schools still teach COBOL but I suspect it's not many. So if you can put up with having a little less glamorous coding to do it's a great job opportunity.
Being verbose is often considered bad, yet languages like VHDL and Ada do it as well. The latter two combine it with a very strict syntax. As a result Ada and VHDL code that compiles/synthesizes has a larger chance of working on the first attempt. More keystrokes isn't exactly a problem. I'm not sure about you but my typing speed isn't the limiting factor in writing programs. The days of planning, flow diagrams, etc. are.
And in how far is Java any less messed up than Cobol is? Java, as used by enterprises today, is an abomination.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It has very little, if anything to do with it being the best language for the job.
That depends on what "the job" is. If the job is to implement a completely new, problem-free and infinitely maintainable system for managing financial transactions with no budget or time constraints, then the answer is "No". Actually, it's a much longer answer that starts with "HELL NO" and includes phrases like "If I ever catch", "Then I'm going to" and "With a frikkin' caber, that's what", but the general sense of it is "No".
If the job is to keep the horrific monstrosity which runs the entire bank lumbering along for another few months while still complying with the latest round of new regulations before it drives you irredeemably mad then the absolute best language for the job is COBOL, because that's what code-thulhu is already written in.
It may be possible, but you shouldn't have to bend or force the language to make it do the right thing. A language should make doing things the "right" way easy.
Agreed, but the origins of that language predated many theories about what the right way is, and by then I suppose there was so much code in the wild that no one wanted to tackle the matter head-on?
As long as YOU get to decide what is the right way, there would only be one computer language. Your pet language.
Look, its pretty clear you are totally ignorant about COBOL, and have maybe looked at a couple programs once, but your pontifications clearly indicate you haven't a single clue.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
And of course languages like Javascript, Ruby, PHP, and so on don't make tangled messes? Lest we forget Objective C or even C++. The only languages that I would think where most people would agree to that are "clean" would be C#, Java, and Smalltalk. I don't want to get into the functional paradigm because it is not IMO a tangled mess if you understand the paradigm.
Anyhoo, if messes were the basis of whether or not to adopt programming languages we would not be writing any programs. Ever try to figure out WTF a Java Spring or Java EE app is? Its a bleeding mess!
The thing is that Cobol applications work! Yes they work, and they perform oodles of calculations without having to do anything major. Let's not forget that at the end of the day most things don't change that much. Thus why rewrite? And the answer, "oh but this is a new shiny toy" does not count.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
You are spot on. If the creators of the Internet knew what it would grow into, they would have designed it differently. Consider the debates and frustration surrounding HTML5 or IPv6. Sometimes you have to declare you have done your best and release it, and then adapt as you learn.
So... you're saying that COBOL has already been replaced by VBA?
No. That would be COBOL running on machine code. By the time it's running, compile time (the only time C was involved in the process) is past...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Sure, and like the article says, learning COBOL might get you a first job. But someone hiring for a Java position might be as likely to take a new college grad who has education in Java over an experienced COBOL programmer, since the worlds are quite different.
I think the logic holds up as long as COBOL holds up, and as long as you continue to educate yourself and keep yourself relevant.