COBOL Leads Us Back To The Future
COBOL defined business software development for decades. Now, is it over the hill or just hitting its prime?
COBOL has been around since Eisenhower sat in the Oval Office. At one time, it was estimated that 80% of all business applications were written in COBOL — a total that represented more than 2 billion lines of code. That was nearly 20 years ago. Does COBOL still matter to the world of enterprise IT today?
Many people seem to think so. A recent article at readwrite.com told us that All the Rich Kids Are Learning COBOL. But what does that really mean?
And, why do we care? In part, it's because there are lots and lots of applications written in COBOL that remain part of the enterprise IT landscape. And, like many other things with historical foundations, COBOL has a whiff of the "retro-cool" about it: You can even get COBOL dev environments that run on Raspberry Pi. There are a number of options for someone who wants to use COBOL — the real question is why you might want to do so.
The first reason is employability. As noted, there are still plenty of companies running applications built on COBOL. And not all of those applications are archaic: Since 2002, COBOL has had an object-oriented framework. And as you'll see, a number of the options we list have Java as an intermediate target — a strategy that has both plusses and minuses when it comes to performance and compatibility with other applications.
The next reason is readability. COBOL is known as a "verbose" language, especially when it's compared to a very terse language like C++. From a debugging standpoint, COBOL can be like reading a novel: In fact, I'd almost bet that, with a few variables thrown in, you could get arbitrary chapters from Game of Thrones to compile. Of course, all your favorite functions would die depressing, lonely deaths, but still…
So let's take a look at the modern options in COBOL. Let us know whether you're using COBOL — and why. Surely the story will be as compelling as one written in Grace Hopper's legacy language…
Visual COBOL is a next-generation toolset for COBOL application development. Visual COBOL is a great choice for those who are committed to the Visual Studio development environment, though it includes a wide choice of deployment platforms including Windows, Unix, Linux, .NET, JVM, and the Cloud.
Visual COBOL is really intended to allow enterprise developers to build and maintain COBOL apps using Visual Studio and Eclipse (the MicroFocus development environment). One of the big selling points, though, is that Visual COBOL lets developers use and re-use COBOL code for applications that will be deployed on any number of platforms across the modern enterprise.
GnuCOBOL (formerly OpenCOBOL) is a free COBOL compiler. cobc translates COBOL to executable using intermediate C sources, providing full access to nearly all C libraries. This is worth noting: GnuCOBOL is using C as its intermediate language rather than the Java that's so popular with other compilers.
GnuCOBOL translates COBOL into C and compiles the translated code using any configured C compiler, usually gcc in the fully GNU-pure versions. You can build your COBOL programs on various platforms, including Unix/Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, OS/400, z/OS 390 mainframes, and Raspberry Pi, among others.
GnuCOBOL is amazingly complete: Unlike many of the other non-mainframe COBOL compilers that present subsets of the language, GnuCOBOL has it all. This means that it's great for three purposes: Porting an existing COBOL application to a new platform; writing COBOL software that will be used on a variety of different hardware; and learning COBOL programming.
People have differing opinions on Richard Stallman and his work. Regardless of where you come down on his opinions, GnuCOBOL is a very good option for COBOL on modern platforms.
Yes, Virginia, there is COBOL for your iPhone. If developing COBOL code while you're waiting in line at the restaurant seems like a fine way to spend a Friday evening, then this application is for you. Now, it must be said that this compiler comes with a sheer boatload of limitations, and that actually compiling is an "in-app purchase" (though you can get unlimited compilations for $2.99, so it's not really a big deal) but it still will let you successfully write simple green-screen apps for your smart phone or iPad.
Enjoy.
There are, of course, other distributions of COBOL. If you have spent your career (or plan to spend your career) on HP, Eclipse, Fujitsu, or any of a number of other platforms you'll be able to find COBOL compilers to help.
There are also several other open source COBOL options, though most are either moribund or still in the early development stages. And, while there might be an Android version to go along with the iOS compiler, I wasn't able to find it.
The short version of all of this is: If you want to learn COBOL, or need to port COBOL to a modern platform, the tools are available to do so. Now the question is whether you want to do it. Let ms know what you think. I'm nostalgic about several programming languages from my misspent programming youth -- is COBOL one of yours? We'll see you in the comments section below.
There are, of course, other distributions of COBOL. If you have spent your career (or plan to spend your career) on HP, Eclipse, Fujitsu, or any of a number of other platforms you'll be able to find COBOL compilers to help.
There are also several other open source COBOL options, though most are either moribund or still in the early development stages. And, while there might be an Android version to go along with the iOS compiler, I wasn't able to find it.
The short version of all of this is: If you want to learn COBOL, or need to port COBOL to a modern platform, the tools are available to do so. Now the question is whether you want to do it. Let ms know what you think. I'm nostalgic about several programming languages from my misspent programming youth -- is COBOL one of yours? We'll see you in the comments section below.
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