I'm a Systems Reliability and DevOps engineer for Netdata Inc. When not working, I enjoy studying linguistics and history, playing video games, and cooking all kinds of international cuisine.
A lot of people who say COBOL is dying are referring to the fact that it's insanely rare to see completely new software built from scratch in it for commercial usage.
Honestly, I see the exact same situation with COBOL that you typically see with a natural language dying out these days. There's essentially zero reason for young people to learn it, but there are a handful (comparatively) of people trying desperately to keep it alive.
It's not "insanely rare to see completely new software built from scratch" in COBOL. At least not in banking and Wall Street. There is a shortage of experienced COBOL programmers to the point we have to hire offshore. My team is always writing new stuff in COBOL. It's stable and efficient and easy to maintain. The front end screens are written in Java but the meat and potatoes is all mainframe COBOL. ISO only does updates every 5 years or so, and there is expected to be a COBOL update in 2020. techrepublic.com/google-amp/articl...
There's no one "trying desperately" to keep COBOL alive. It "lives" for the most part because of the massive cost of re-engineering the systems currently written in COBOL - and the fact that there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to take that hit when things are perfectly fine as they are.
I'm a Systems Reliability and DevOps engineer for Netdata Inc. When not working, I enjoy studying linguistics and history, playing video games, and cooking all kinds of international cuisine.
I'm not referring to the existing systems, I'm talking about the people doing new things with it and developing the language further than it's current state. Without those efforts, the language is effectively dead since the existing usage is functionally time-limited (those existing systems using it will be replaced eventually, because the hardware will have to be completely replaced some day).
Replacing system hardware doesn't mean having to replace applications software. A lot of COBOL systems that used to run on IBM and ICL mainframe environments now run on cloud systems. Take a look at what Fujitsu have to offer in this respect. Cheap, modern platform solutions without the MASSIVE expense of software re-engineering. Also, the language features ARE regularly updated to provide new features and functionality, while still being able to run the core legacy applications. New 'from scratch' projects are rare (outside of banking and finance, anyway) but development continues on existing systems, as it must.
Programmed Canon Canola calculators in 1977. Assorted platforms and languages ever since. Assisting with HOPL.info.
I am NOT looking for work -- I've got more than enough to do.
Location
Perth, WA Australia
Education
A few diplomas.
Work
Software Engineer at [Daisy Digital](https://daisydigital.com.au/)
Hmmm ... let's see, when was COBOL's last ISO standard released? Oh, 2014. Can't be doing anything new then, can it?
And there's a clue in its name. The "B". It stands for Business. So you're not going to see it being used to write word-processors, signal-processors or Google API back-ends.
Existing systems may be replaced eventually, @ahferroin7
, but you and I will both have died and turned to dust by then.
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A lot of people who say COBOL is dying are referring to the fact that it's insanely rare to see completely new software built from scratch in it for commercial usage.
Honestly, I see the exact same situation with COBOL that you typically see with a natural language dying out these days. There's essentially zero reason for young people to learn it, but there are a handful (comparatively) of people trying desperately to keep it alive.
It's not "insanely rare to see completely new software built from scratch" in COBOL. At least not in banking and Wall Street. There is a shortage of experienced COBOL programmers to the point we have to hire offshore. My team is always writing new stuff in COBOL. It's stable and efficient and easy to maintain. The front end screens are written in Java but the meat and potatoes is all mainframe COBOL. ISO only does updates every 5 years or so, and there is expected to be a COBOL update in 2020.
techrepublic.com/google-amp/articl...
There's no one "trying desperately" to keep COBOL alive. It "lives" for the most part because of the massive cost of re-engineering the systems currently written in COBOL - and the fact that there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to take that hit when things are perfectly fine as they are.
I'm not referring to the existing systems, I'm talking about the people doing new things with it and developing the language further than it's current state. Without those efforts, the language is effectively dead since the existing usage is functionally time-limited (those existing systems using it will be replaced eventually, because the hardware will have to be completely replaced some day).
Replacing system hardware doesn't mean having to replace applications software. A lot of COBOL systems that used to run on IBM and ICL mainframe environments now run on cloud systems. Take a look at what Fujitsu have to offer in this respect. Cheap, modern platform solutions without the MASSIVE expense of software re-engineering. Also, the language features ARE regularly updated to provide new features and functionality, while still being able to run the core legacy applications. New 'from scratch' projects are rare (outside of banking and finance, anyway) but development continues on existing systems, as it must.
Hmmm ... let's see, when was COBOL's last ISO standard released? Oh, 2014. Can't be doing anything new then, can it?
And there's a clue in its name. The "B". It stands for Business. So you're not going to see it being used to write word-processors, signal-processors or Google API back-ends.
Existing systems may be replaced eventually, @ahferroin7 , but you and I will both have died and turned to dust by then.