COBOL — The Misunderstood Language

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Abstract

ou will see that besides COBOL, many companies want experience or exposure to the newer languages such as C#, .NET, SQL Server, Oracle, UNIX, etc. This gives you the best of both worlds to be a much sought-after developer. Become a real power developer.</p><h2 id="5c2d">Boring?</h2><p id="aab1">I heard younger developers say that with COBOL, it is a boring job as you only do maintenance. While that is true to a point, there is much new coding to be done as technology and business practices changes in the future. The front end of applications change and there is a need to be able to exchange data back and forth, and new coding must be created. With business practices also changing over time, there will be new COBOL programs written.</p><h2 id="9556">Not a simple language</h2><p id="5da2">When taking a high-level look at COBOL code, it seems like it is a simple language. But it was made to <i>READ</i> easier than other languages. The commands themselves are very powerful, and you need to have a more in-depth knowledge of the hardware/software relationship than in the new languages. Many other languages such as C++ or C# are very hard to read when needing a modification. Many times the code segment is rewritten rather than modified.</p><p id="a75c">Newer languages are most

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ly “calls” to DLL, or libraries, or other snippets that may be written by other developers, and you are just putting the code pieces together. COBOL doesn’t have extensive libraries, so you must code pretty much everything yourself. That to me was a great challenge, even when you need to do maintenance on a program.</p><h2 id="8431">The need for developers</h2><p id="6b5e">There is a big need for COBOL developers and the need gets larger every day due to developers retiring. The developers that are currently working are now approaching the age of retirement. This is another area of humor that all the developers are mostly seniors. But look at all the new college graduates or self-taught coders that are all in competition for jobs today.</p><h2 id="89b3">Don’t ignore COBOL because of false statements</h2><p id="be3c">I’ve seen it time and time again that many developers learn a language such as C# or PYTHON and they believe all software should be developed using that language. This is the worst thinking that you can have. A true developer will use the right language for the right purpose for ease of use for user interfaces and creating efficient code.</p><p id="e9c3">I hope this will persuade a couple of the younger developers to give COBOL a chance.</p></article></body>

COBOL is not just for seniors anymore

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COBOL has been ridiculed by the younger developers for some time now. I have experienced this over the years when discussing that I’m a software developer. The thing to understand about COBOL is there are millions of lines of code in the world, running as the back end of huge corporations. There are also many mid-sized businesses utilizing COBOL. These lines of code will probably never go away.

COBOL has now been written to run on Windows servers and PC Computers now by a couple of major software developers. The best part of this is that you can add embedded SQL to the code to access the relational database.

The best of both worlds now

If you really want to have a long-term career, you should take a serious look at COBOL. There are many resources on the internet, including a large website about COBOL training on the IBM website.

When you look up COBOL programming on the job websites such as Indeed and Monster you will see that besides COBOL, many companies want experience or exposure to the newer languages such as C#, .NET, SQL Server, Oracle, UNIX, etc. This gives you the best of both worlds to be a much sought-after developer. Become a real power developer.

Boring?

I heard younger developers say that with COBOL, it is a boring job as you only do maintenance. While that is true to a point, there is much new coding to be done as technology and business practices changes in the future. The front end of applications change and there is a need to be able to exchange data back and forth, and new coding must be created. With business practices also changing over time, there will be new COBOL programs written.

Not a simple language

When taking a high-level look at COBOL code, it seems like it is a simple language. But it was made to READ easier than other languages. The commands themselves are very powerful, and you need to have a more in-depth knowledge of the hardware/software relationship than in the new languages. Many other languages such as C++ or C# are very hard to read when needing a modification. Many times the code segment is rewritten rather than modified.

Newer languages are mostly “calls” to DLL, or libraries, or other snippets that may be written by other developers, and you are just putting the code pieces together. COBOL doesn’t have extensive libraries, so you must code pretty much everything yourself. That to me was a great challenge, even when you need to do maintenance on a program.

The need for developers

There is a big need for COBOL developers and the need gets larger every day due to developers retiring. The developers that are currently working are now approaching the age of retirement. This is another area of humor that all the developers are mostly seniors. But look at all the new college graduates or self-taught coders that are all in competition for jobs today.

Don’t ignore COBOL because of false statements

I’ve seen it time and time again that many developers learn a language such as C# or PYTHON and they believe all software should be developed using that language. This is the worst thinking that you can have. A true developer will use the right language for the right purpose for ease of use for user interfaces and creating efficient code.

I hope this will persuade a couple of the younger developers to give COBOL a chance.