Re: cobol code assessment

Top post:

You might like to look at the frequency/severity of faults it's exhibited.
Also, the ease or otherwise of diagnosing faults, including how it handles (run-time, obviously) errors, how informative/accurate/complete the error-reports are, do they get logged automatically (by the code).

otoh, perhaps you might like to get involved in style warfare?
Are just sections - correctly sized! - used; are there any "go to's"; are the programs overloaded with functionality; is there decent comment in the source?
Can you actually understand the code without tearing out your hair?
Are there any non-supported techniques/features in use (non-supported by the compiler supplier)?
(Or even by operating system supplier).
Does the code depend on specific hardware being used (e.g. terminal screens)?

Or is the code an absolute peach & everyone loves & respects it?

Is your compiler within a maintenance agreement?

Best of luck

Michael
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.  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?  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.  If you have any web addresses of how to do this, it
would be MOST appreciated.  Also, if any of you have done this, if you
could show me your final analysis (without the company identifying
information, of course!)  THANKS

.