Re: How proprietary is the "COBOL file system"

On 2 Oct 2007 12:43:15 GMT, bill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bill
Gunshannon) wrote:

The same people resisted the introduction of open platforms
like RDB, for the same reason. I have not forgotten the scorn and
villification I received in a predecessor of this very forum, when I
suggested that moving to RDB might be a good thing. The world voted with
its feet; they were not going to write COBOL programs to access data if they
didn't HAVE to... COBOL was left behind.

I keep hearing this, but experience proves otherwise. I have lietened
to someone locally talking about how a local insurance company (think
blimp & beagle) is abandoning COBOL in favor of Java. I have spoken
with the people who do the COBOL and they just laugh

It wasn't too long ago when most everybody here thought CoBOL would
outlast Java.

Besides features of the languages, there are other reasons for
businesses to keep their old language, or to go to a new language:

- Most companies have or want packaged software as part of their IS.
When they maintain those packages, they will want to have workers who
are skilled in whatever languages those packages are written in.

- Most companies have expanded their IS to include Web features. Often
they have mainframe programmers and web programmers. I haven't come
across any mainframe shops using CoBOL for their web apps.

- Companies like to hire programmers with experience programming in a
particular language. Anybody can acquire experience using Java at no
great expense. And the projects they do can be easily demonstrated.

- Companies are moving towards centralized databases and data
warehouses. The new cool tools that make it easy to use those are
often web based - at least those tools that the decision makers use
are.

- Companies get bought out by other companies. This often means that
one company's IS gets taken over, and their data get combined. The
easiest way to do this is by using standard databases and distributed
systems.

- Or my company's not changing, don't risk changing the IS.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: GoTo in Java
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