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."

Comments

Nothing does

[geekoid]

what COBOL does as well as COBOL does it.

Re:Nothing does

[Joce640k]

Keeping them employed until retirement age.

Re:Nothing does

[julesh]

This is true. There is no other language which enables programs written in COBOL to run.

Re:Nothing does

[Nerdfest]

If you mean solving business-related information technology problems in a concise and maintainable way, I think you're very, very wrong. COBOL is a horrible, wordy language. If you mean wearing out developer's keyboards, you are more correct. COBOL is too verbose to be easily legible. I'm of the opinion that there is an ideal level of information density when it comes to conveying the intent of a piece of software. At one end is assembly, and at the other is COBOL. neither are good. C approaches it from one end and probably something like Python from the other. Both are for more usable, maintable, and flexible languages.

I'm of the opinion that if you enjoy writing code in COBOL you either haven't used anything else or you're a masochist.

Re:Nothing does

[Nerdfest]

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.

Re:Nothing does

[solidraven]

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.

Re:Nothing does

[macraig]

It didn't have to be that way. When I was still in school a millennium ago and took my one and only COBOL course, I recall devising a pseudo-structured way of using the language that the instructor had never seen before, yet my code was no less capable than the more typical approach(es). It obviously caught him quite by surprise by his reaction, which I've never forgotten (I've forgotten every detail about my technique). Perhaps it made my code more modular and maintainable.

Re:Nothing does

[Minwee]

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.

Re:Nothing does

[Nerdfest]

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.

Re:Nothing does

[macraig]

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?

Re:Nothing does

[SerpentMage]

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.

Re:Nothing does

[mwvdlee]

It sure does!

On the other hand, I got out of COBOL programming after some ~12 years because the only thing COBOL does well is what COBOL has done thousands of times before.

It's a boring platform to develop for; very few interresting (from a technical perspective) projects ever come along.
Safe and secure life as a developer; yes. Actually enjoying your safety and security; no.

Re:Nothing does

[AlphaFreak]

Record (file) handling. To process a record-composed file in C you have to write a lot of boilerplate code (just parsing the records into its components and re-creating the records by parts) requires probably to write a specific function to do that. In COBOL you just declare the structure mapping the physical record and you are done.

By the way, the languge has all the control structures needed to write decent code since COBOL-81. Before that (COBOL-74) it was a really ugly mess, but the modern COBOL (yes, it has been updated a lot of times) allows to write clean and understandadble code.

Re:Nothing does

[azadrozny]

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.

Re:Nothing does

[tripleevenfall]

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.

Re:Nothing does

[tripleevenfall]

You're about to find out. 2014 is going to be the Year Of COBOL On The Desktop.

This.

[mfwitten]

This is why we can't have nice things.

The reason it is still used is simple.

[mindmaster064]

COBOL is one of the few languages that is completely standardized. IO, formatting, everything works the same EVERYWHERE. Certainly, the column nature of coding in the language is annoying, but not much more than BASIC was with it's numbering scheme. As far as the programs that chug through industrial-sized databases go few touch as many records as COBOL does.

COBOL is...

[erp_consultant]

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.

Re:Java = the next COBOL

[gweihir]

And in how far is Java any less messed up than Cobol is? Java, as used by enterprises today, is an abomination.

Re:A complicated answer to a simple problem

[Minwee]

The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence. -- Dijkstra

So I say any company that wants to send their employees to a COBOL class should be sent to jail for torture and reckless endangerment.

By that logic, as a result of off-shoring initiatives, several major US corporations have technically declared war on the nation of India.

COBOL is plainly superior...

[istartedi]

COBOL is plainly superior... from an evolutionary standpoint. It propagated and survived. Nevermind that it feeds on the souls of developers. That's irrelevant. Evolution only cares about propagation and survival.

Again?

[Antipater]

An identical story was posted back in February. By the same user, no less. So, Mr. Josh Fruhlinger, how much does Eric Bloom pay you to Slashvertise for him?

Re:You Can Tell COBOL Was Designed By A Woman

[seven of five]

And a missing period gets you in a lot of trouble.

we need more

[Toshito]

At my work we're just starting a multimillion dollar project, mostly in COBOL, on a mainframe. And I'm not talking about modifying old code, we're developing a new system. So we'll need about 30 new COBOL programmers very soon. It's far from dead!

Re:not even C?

[osu-neko]

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...