Reports of COBOL’s Imminent Demise Premature
Colleges, corporate initiatives help venerable language stay vital
By Geoff Koch
January 1, 2007 —
(Page 1 of 3)
The idea of commingling grandfatherly COBOL with more sprightly languages runs counter to any notions about the impending demise of mainframes. But such notions—which generally hold that mainframes are on their way out thanks to newly powerful x86 servers, newer programming languages and a looming shortage of COBOL-savvy engineers—don’t appear to hold up well against the reality of the mainframe market today.
Arguably, no programming language is more associated with mainframes than COBOL, which has been subject to more than occasional ridicule during its long existence. The acronym stands for Common Business-Oriented Language, though there are several stinging alternatives, including Compiles Only Because of Luck and Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language.
However, more than four decades after the language was created, many technologists remain willing to sing its praises, especially when it comes to its ability to handle huge volumes of information in large corporate and government data centers.
“There is no other language that will match COBOL in this respect,” said Rui de Oliveira, author of “The Power of COBOL,” published in October. Oliveira, a 30-year programming veteran and founder of the Luso Computer Institute in South Africa, added that COBOL “has also shown itself to be an excellent vehicle for teaching the art and science of programming.”
COBOL ON CAMPUS
Though perhaps waning, instruction in COBOL and other legacy technologies is still available at several colleges and universities, in part due to programs sponsored by vendors with significant skin in the mainframe game.
IBM has an academic initiative to make mainframe technologies more accessible to budding computer professionals. The company provides curriculum to more than 300 universities worldwide and sponsors an annual “Master the Mainframe” contest to foment interest in large-scale computing.
Micro Focus, too, works with university partners, in part by providing low-cost licensing of its software for classroom instruction. Zhenyu Huang, a professor of business information systems at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., teaches a PC-version of Micro Focus Net Express, a COBOL development environment for extending legacy applications to the .NET Framework.
Share this link: http://sdt.bz/29965
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible
|
|
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers
|
|
ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development
|
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists
|
|
Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles
|
|
Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions
|
Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
|
|
Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
|
|
RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
|
|
GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
|
The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing
Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...
|
|
Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic
As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...
|
|
Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank
One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...
|
|
Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications
Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...
|