Micro Focus is one of the main suppliers of COBOL compilers, so it’s not surprising that they would argue that the language is still relevant.
COBOL – Still standing the test of time
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Re: COBOL – Still standing the test of time
#12Has anyone ever actually met a COBOL programmer? It seems like the teachers tale of someone cracking their head open while swinging on their chair - presumably they exist but there can't be that many of them?
Re: COBOL – Still standing the test of time
#13Has anyone ever actually met a COBOL programmer? It seems like the teachers tale of someone cracking their head open while swinging on their chair - presumably they exist but there can't be that many of them?
More than a hundred, probably less than 500
Re: COBOL – Still standing the test of time
#14Has anyone ever actually met a COBOL programmer? It seems like the teachers tale of someone cracking their head open while swinging on their chair - presumably they exist but there can't be that many of them?
I used to do consulting in banks. I met several Cobol programmers. However, they thought of their role as CICS programmers. CICS is a mainframe transaction management tool. All of them also did assembly in CICS.
Re: COBOL – Still standing the test of time
#15I've always thought that the reason COBOL is still "popular" is that it became an entrenched technology many years ago, and the cost of replacement is high enough (and it works fine doing what it's doing) that no one wants to invest the time and money to replace it's usage. This quote made me pause though, "COBOL remains the preferred choice for systems where application quality and operating cost remain important co…
I spent ~7 years or so at one of the large credit card companies. The adage "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" was very prevalent there, and anything that even hinted at touching the core payment processing code was scrutinized heavily and usually avoided entirely.
At the time, the cost of an outage was estimated in the $100K's per minute, and is likely significantly higher now.
When I moved away from FinServ, I found it surprising at first how cavalier some orgs are about ripping/replacing core services in the name of "modernization". Move fast & break things and all of that...
Re: COBOL – Still standing the test of time
#16Has anyone ever actually met a COBOL programmer? It seems like the teachers tale of someone cracking their head open while swinging on their chair - presumably they exist but there can't be that many of them?
I met some Cobol programmers in an open office space at a bank.
Pleasant, relaxed bunch.
Re: COBOL – Still standing the test of time
#17COBOL Forever!
Re: COBOL – Still standing the test of time
#18I've always thought that the reason COBOL is still "popular" is that it became an entrenched technology many years ago, and the cost of replacement is high enough (and it works fine doing what it's doing) that no one wants to invest the time and money to replace it's usage. This quote made me pause though, "COBOL remains the preferred choice for systems where application quality and operating cost remain important co…
I manage some ColdFusion apps still going strong.
>the cost of replacement is high enough (and it works fine doing what it's doing) that no one wants to invest the time and money to replace it's usage
That's pretty much what it is. They're not hard to manage as they are and ... doing their thing.
Re: COBOL – Still standing the test of time
#19Has anyone ever actually met a COBOL programmer? It seems like the teachers tale of someone cracking their head open while swinging on their chair - presumably they exist but there can't be that many of them?
My job involves a lot of projects with IBM i and Z so I meet a lot of them. It's pretty much the "greybeards" you'd expect, but also surprisingly there's a LOT of older women in these roles. Like, proportionally way more than an in open systems world in my experience. I've always wondered why that is, I have heard that programming used to be considered a "woman's job" so maybe that's it.
Re: COBOL – Still standing the test of time
#20Has anyone ever actually met a COBOL programmer? It seems like the teachers tale of someone cracking their head open while swinging on their chair - presumably they exist but there can't be that many of them?
I worked with some at a bank (of course).
Nowadays a "mainframe" is just a 1U server and it's incredible how some old names in IT can still charge enormous fees for some very old software.