COBOL

[dchw_dude]

I am currently working on a presentation for my programming languages class, and I have picked COBOL as the language I am going to present about. I was wondering if anybody here has:

1. Ever heard of COBOL
2. Ever used COBOL

I would live to hear about your experiences/thoughts/feelings, even if they are minimal. This will contribute to the introduction of my language presentation.

[Nude_Lewd_Man]

I've heard of it, but that's in the same sort of way that I've heard about a lot of things - without actually needing to know anything more about it, like how it works, what it does or why it would be a preference to anything else...

I had a similar thing with where I work now, before I started working for them - I'd heard of them, but didn't know what they did or how it works/worked... TBH, they were actually a little surprised when I said that I'd heard of them in my interphew...

COBOL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[dchw_dude]

I've heard of it, but that's in the same sort of way that I've heard about a lot of things - without actually needing to know anything more about it, like how it works, what it does or why it would be a preference to anything else...

I had a similar thing with where I work now, before I started working for them - I'd heard of them, but didn't know what they did or how it works/worked... TBH, they were actually a little surprised when I said that I'd heard of them in my interphew...

COBOL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah. I am now more familiar with COBOL than I had ever hoped. Its a pretty strict language.

For my demo, I am hoping to bend the rules with some cool graphics demos . . . ive got the boring number munching demo parts done/coded.

[howste]

I had a programming class in college where I had to program in COBOL. Do I remember anything about it? Not really. That was probably 1983...

[ShyguyXPC]

I had a programming class in college where I had to program in COBOL. Do I remember anything about it? Not really. That was probably 1983...

Same here, though my class was back in 1996/1997. all I can remember from it was a couple lines of code, and that I aced the class and finished it weeks before anyone else in my class period.

spent the next couple weeks, helping the teacher, help students along, between me and the teacher, we managed to get a few more students finished early, 2 days before last day of the class (also end of the school year), we managed to get everyone finished with the final and nothing left to do LOL.

I remember having to actually make the Database of names and numbers and all that stuff for each assignment, and then make the programs to sort the database based on what ever was needed, sort it by name, by income, by hours worked, etc.

or

program it to add various accounts or databases together, etc etc.

basically most things you could do with todays GUI spread sheet and database apps you had to program it to do this stuff.

it was confusing at first, but if you have a knack for learning programming related stuff, (trial and error, or experimenting with lines of code, etc), it was pretty easy to pick up on, and breeze through assignments and tasks.

I was never that great with math, but this was one of the easier Programming languages I learned... and in time, like all others, forgot LOL.

like with just about all programming languages, a single "typo" in the entire program can throw it all off and not let it work, a tab or spacing forgotten, a single symbol or extra character left in a line, etc.

was really tedious going through a large program (2 or 3 or 4 pages in length) and figuring out what was wrong, only to find you forgot to space, or left a small character in like a period or something while typing fast, and the character was hard to see amongst all the other text.

[Steve R Jones]

COBOL (pronounced /ˈkoʊbɒl/) is one of the oldest programming languages.
COBOL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wondering why you'd pick a language that won't do much for your career or anything else for that matter

[howste]

1:09 to 1:19

[de_day]

I programmed in COBOL for 20 years, still have OpenCobol on my Linux box. You can program online systems, embedded SQL and a lot of other stuff with it. Don't knock it until you've tried it, there's still a LOT of code out there managing your money and other things on the big mainframes that they said were going away 20 years ago.

I made a lot of money converting date fields for Y2K...

[ShyguyXPC]

COBOL (pronounced /ˈkoʊbɒl/) is one of the oldest programming languages.
COBOL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wondering why you'd pick a language that won't do much for your career or anything else for that matter

There's still a lot of smaller companies and business' that use COBOL though, so depending on where they live, whats available in their career line they went to school, it could be a job security thing as well.

[Imanage]

Back in the late 80's, I used to program for a big insurance company. COBOL was big behind the code for most of the systems. SAS was being introduced for reporting needs. PCs were just really coming into play for the corporate world but most of it was still on mainframe. Code was so big, programmers must have printed reams of paper to work on one module. Different systems were so big, I think integration was a job for half the staff. I would not be surprised if they could not do it to convert to a faster and newer programming language. But you do appreciate how data was packed super efficiently or data structures were designed in the old days. I think cheap equipment ,storage and processing power, today makes for a sloppier code and bloating by being able to throw in everything with a click of the mouse. Ever hear of Fortran and Pascal?

[ShyguyXPC]

Bit off topic:

Fortran, Yes, I missed taking that class by one year (1995-1996 School year, 1994-1995 year was the last year it was offered at my Community College), it was offered in the list of programs I looked at during my Senior year of high school, when I started my first year at the college, they didn't inform me it was cancelled, until it was time to schedule classes one "semester" (we were still on the quarterly schedule before almost ALL of Minnesota's post secondary institutions all banded together under the MnSCU System (Minnesota State Colleges And Universities).

anyways, I missed out on taking that class.

as to Pascal, the only offering we had of that was a little bit of MacPascal in High school with a few of the Computer Classes offered.

Bit more off topic: they offered a series of Computer Learning classes, everything from Learning BASIC, to trying out and doing stuff in Kid Pix and other drawing graphics programs, it was basically a Sluff class for many of us Geeks, just about everything we did, we had already learned and new how to do, was just a class for us to play around on the computers some more, and was easy Math Class credits for graduation.

most of the guys and girls in those classes, most of us either went on to computer related careers or started schooling in computers.

Be it computer graphics, Drafting Design, Architectural related, Engineering of some sort, Wireless Communications, Electronics, Programming, Networking, or what have you, most of us that were in those classes went after or are in careers that heavily use Computers.

but we had limited exposure to Pascal with that.

[de_day]

I guess I'm old .. only 47 though..... but I've programmed in COBOL. I've maintained Assembler and Fortran code at companies where I've worked. I've even had to learn Pascal in a Finite Math class once to run all of our simulations.

My first programming class was on a TRS-80 and a remote connection to a VAX at my highschool in 1979. Both machines ran BASIC.

[Gomar]

I had BASIC on the TRS-80 in high school. Pascal, C, and COBOL in college.I like to forget I ever took COBOL as it fried my brain. hated it. It was blamed for the Y2K problem. Noone wants to use it anymore, so forget about presenting it in class. Might as well show 'em CP/M or Win3.11 or Pascal or Fortran or some other useless OP or language.

[Big_Daddy]

I've been programming in COBOL since 1981. So, yeah, I've heard of it.

[Rootstonian]

Wow, I haven't been on this forum in a LOOONG time lol...and I find a COBOL thread LOL.

COBOL is still out there big time and so is CICS. Ever go to a store and see a "green sceen" computer (like LOWE'S)? yeah, that's probably a CICS front end to run some COBOL system.

Times are a changing though...I've gone from mainframe to client/server and now I'm programming smartphone apps

[Gomar]

COBOL?
I havent heard it mentioned in 10 years... thank god!
Too bad you brought up bad memories again.
That language is dead and buried, and best forgotten.
Please do not ever mention the word COBOL in your life ever again.

[Gomar]

Back in the late 80's, Ever hear of Fortran and Pascal?

Yes. dead and buried, just as Cobol.
No college courses offered in Fortran; as for Pascal, students picked up bad habits. It was considered a learning language to get people off BASIC and into C style programming. But why not just learn C? Oh, I know, because C++ came out and it's Object-Oriented.
did you get that magic word >>> Object Oriented <<<
say it 3 times and you'll have a nice little Irishman bring you a pot o'gold.

So, BASIC is bad; Cobol old, Fortran is used by maybe 5 people in the U.S.;
Pascal is no longer taught, all that's left is VB, C++ and Java.
But then old Bill comes up with this new thingy called .Net
dont get me started.

[howste]

Please do not ever mention the word COBOL in your life ever again.

Yes. dead and buried, just as Cobol.