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COBOL has a droll image. Alas, and according to me unjustly! Why would COBOL be worse then C#, Java, VB and all the other modern programming languages? Those modern languages differentiate from the old programming environments by e.g.:
- graphical interface (GUI)
- object orientation
- relational database access
- access to the Windows API and other system elements
- .NET support
- XML support |
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Confirmation of the droll image
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BUT THIS IS ALL POSSIBLE IN COBOL!
From where comes that droll image? There are several reasons for that:
A first cause is that after 1985 the COBOL standardization committee did not succeed in establishing a new standard which met the latest technological demands. Because of this, all the COBOL vendors implemented their own solutions for the demands of the market. The market hesitated to accept these supplier specific extensions. The big advantage of COBOL was after all that it was standard for the greatest part and one was not depending on just one software or hardware vendor to run your software!
Second, COBOL has always been a programming language for the professionals. While book shops are filled with Java and VB books and magazines, COBOL stayed the language of the professional specialist. What also did not help was that COBOL development environments very quickly costed a couple of thousand euros or dollars, while for a couple of hundred euros / dollars tools for the popular languages were available.
Last, but not least, it did not help that most COBOL applications looked very old fashioned. According Forrester Research there are at this moment 200 billion lines of COBOL in production and every year another 5 billion are added. Regrettable most COBOL lines are maintained and programmed on a mainframe. Most of the times this COBOL code looks the same as 10 - 15 years ago (the well-known 'green screen' code!). This confirms the droll image of COBOL towards outsiders!
In the meantime the COBOL 2002 standard arrived and initiatives are taken to provide low cost, or even free, development systems (see COBOL language).
Through this web site you can visit several interesting COBOL sites. You will discover that COBOL is still alive and kicking!
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This is also COBOL!
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