Re: cobol code assessment

In article <1138416722.370897.6450@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
apple.time@xxxxxxxxx <apple.time@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>My boss just asked me to do a Cobol code assessment for our company.
>He has given me no guidelines on what is expected of me.

Sounds like there'll be nothing to judge the results of your efforts by,
then.

>I have worked
>with cobol for 20 years, so I know it quite well. I am not to use any
>'tools' for creating metrics on the code. I guess the company is
>trying to decide if our programs are 'good enough', or whether we
>should be rewriting them in some newer technology. We have both
>on-line systems for data entry and batch processing. They want me to
>have an analysis for them in a week. HELP! What do I do?

Exactly what has been asked of you... assess the code. Does it do what is
required of it? If so, then say so... if no, then don't.

>fyi... I
>plan to talk to everyone on the team.... from programmers, system
>analysts, data base administrators, help desk, users, etc. But, they
>want me to examine the CODE itself as well. This is the piece that I
>am unsure of.

This is the easiest part. In absence of a different task-requirement it
may be best to use a metric that's been valid for the past 20 years and
more:

IF PROGRAM-RUNS
PERFORM NEXT-ASSIGNMENT
ELSE
PERFORM CODE-LIKE-HELL
UNTIL DAMNED-THING-WORKS.

See how easy? As mentioned above, determine if the code does what is
required of it... if you want to get fancy, ask 'how does the code
*prevent* the performance of something that is required of it?'.

Piece o' cake... there's no need to ask anyone else to do your job for you
at all.

DD
.