Posted on 05/20/2010 6:37:29 PM PDT by 10Ring
Many federal agencies are using machines that are running software developed 25 to 35 years ago, and they're still going strong.
These machines are using the COmmon Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) to get things done.
Invented in 1959 by Naval officer Grace Hopper, COBOL is still a prevalent force throughout the federal government.
There are still about 200 billion lines of the code in live operation, and 75 percent of business-critical applications and 90 percent of financial transactions use it.
(Excerpt) Read more at federalnewsradio.com ...
As with everything Obama tries to fix...
I heard they were going to hire a bunch of gay programmers and rewrite it all in LISP.
Obama....well, I guess I’m clinging to my God, guns and COBOL now!
This article is an advertisement for Microfocus.
Don’t worry. Obama may destroy the USA, but COBOL will survive.
(no I'm going to have nightmares)
Second time today I've had to say this: "Take off and nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."
God Bless Adm Hopper, but Cobol is past it's 'use by' date.
Much to my chagrin, I find that I can run Cobol programs on this relatively new linux laptop.
/johnny
When I saw the word ‘COBOL’ it reminded of a computer language from way back in college. So I started reading the thread to see what COBOL means today. LOL. Unbelievable that it still exists.
It would be nice if an article about moving cheaply out of COBOL described how to move cheaply out of COBOL.
Sounds like the PROLOG to a good story.
Fortran still rules
No wonder all the panicked scare of Y2K, which barely affected private business' but absolutely TERRORIZED government
Is COBOL’s brother FORTRAN still around?
Unbelievable that an old language such as English still exists;why hasn’t something newer taken its place?
“When does the backward compatibility thing become counterproductive?”
When it’s more expensive than doing something completely new. Which is seldom.
The usual rule for business applications is to rewrite them only to incorporate significant business enhancements and changes; not just to use more current technology.
Well, now I've got to wipe my screen. ;-D
We still use FORTRAN (one of the biggest companies in USA). COBOL is a better language for sure, one of the early great computer languages, structured data, subroutines, data typing. FORTRAN is a little better than assembly.
I think its a real shame that Turing never caught on. It had the nicest, most common sense, syntax of any programing language I’ve seen.
FORTRAN isn't much like COBOL; however, it is still around and going strong. Again, it is used mostly in government circles. FORTRAN is a number-crunching langauge.
Grace's team developed this one as well. I worked for a lady who was one of "Grace's girls". Charlene was a remarkable programmer and a good manager.
Microsoft's recent excursion into the .NET crap has rendered Microsoft products entirely unsuitable for number crunching, even on today's blistering fast machines. FORTRAN and C will continue to be the "Kings of Computation" simply because they are compiled and optimized.
I prefer C or C++ to any language.
What's he going to do, nationalize all the working storage?
-PJ
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