Comments on: I have seen the future, and its name is COBOL http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/ The Fastest Way to Launch Successful Software Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:36:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Frank Gauthier http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7159 Frank Gauthier Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:51:37 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7159 For all here regarding COBOL. Take a look at these web sites. http://www.veryant.com/ http://www.MicroFocus.com http://www.alchemy.com I challenge anyone commenting here to find an application web based or otherwise that can't be done in COBOL today. Good Luck! For all here regarding COBOL. Take a look at these web sites.

http://www.veryant.com/
http://www.MicroFocus.com
http://www.alchemy.com

I challenge anyone commenting here to find an application web based or otherwise that can’t be done in COBOL today.

Good Luck!

]]> By: yakijy http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7158 yakijy Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:50:41 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7158 <p>At my first job at CN&W, I had 5 job duties. I was Programmer, Analyst (a separate job now called Business Analyst), Tester (a separate job now called QA Tester), Documentation, Production Support (a separate job now called Support Engineer). <br /> The best way to hold down IT costs would be to have the programmer do ALL these tasks, under the direction of a manager WHO ACTUALLY HAS DONE PROGRAMMING. You can't believe how many managers are NON-TECHNICAL. Your manager should be a go-to person, who has more knowledge than the developer, not just a chart maker. Nowadays the analysis is done in the US, the programming done in India, the QA done in the US, the support done in India, the documentation not done anywhere. Information technology is a bloated, inefficient PIG nowadays - blame MANAGEMENT. You have 5 separate parts pulling a program in 5 different directions. <br /> A truly competent programmer/analyst, which is what my title used to be, can save the company a LOT of money.</p> At my first job at CN&W, I had 5 job duties. I was Programmer, Analyst (a separate job now called Business Analyst), Tester (a separate job now called QA Tester), Documentation, Production Support (a separate job now called Support Engineer).
The best way to hold down IT costs would be to have the programmer do ALL these tasks, under the direction of a manager WHO ACTUALLY HAS DONE PROGRAMMING. You can’t believe how many managers are NON-TECHNICAL. Your manager should be a go-to person, who has more knowledge than the developer, not just a chart maker. Nowadays the analysis is done in the US, the programming done in India, the QA done in the US, the support done in India, the documentation not done anywhere. Information technology is a bloated, inefficient PIG nowadays – blame MANAGEMENT. You have 5 separate parts pulling a program in 5 different directions.
A truly competent programmer/analyst, which is what my title used to be, can save the company a LOT of money.

]]> By: kajdo http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7157 kajdo Thu, 11 Oct 2007 03:26:55 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7157 <p>@Gryph0n & Rick</p> <p>very interesting comments ... could you give me some more information abt. your environment ... right now i started to write my master-thesis with the "workingtitle" Cobol meets J2EE and i would really be interested in your point of view you can contact me via <a href="http://www.contactify.com/eb813" rel="nofollow">http://www.contactify.com/eb813</a></p> @Gryph0n & Rick

very interesting comments … could you give me some more information abt. your environment … right now i started to write my master-thesis with the “workingtitle” Cobol meets J2EE and i would really be interested in your point of view you can contact me via http://www.contactify.com/eb813

]]> By: Gryph0n http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7156 Gryph0n Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:11:59 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7156 <p>I work on C/C++ apps running on HP-UX PA-RISC boxes that interface with "legacy" mainframe/COBOL systems. I cannot accept that mainframe systems are faster than modern systems. The reasons why the mainframes are around at my place are:<br /> 1>The business logic implemented in these systems are either not or poorly documented. It would take ages to get back documented business logic from the existing codebase<br /> 2>The company doesnt want to throw away the investments it made in these systems and go with new-fad C++/Java/Ruby replacements because the existing systems are "good enough" and there wouldnt be sufficient ROI</p> <p>Modern Midrange(Sun,HPUX,AIX_)/PC environments can run in circles around these mainframe systems.</p> <p>All said, I do believe that the mainframes are much more reliable environments (No crashing/Restarting etc) than the Midrange/PC environments</p> I work on C/C++ apps running on HP-UX PA-RISC boxes that interface with “legacy” mainframe/COBOL systems. I cannot accept that mainframe systems are faster than modern systems. The reasons why the mainframes are around at my place are:
1>The business logic implemented in these systems are either not or poorly documented. It would take ages to get back documented business logic from the existing codebase
2>The company doesnt want to throw away the investments it made in these systems and go with new-fad C++/Java/Ruby replacements because the existing systems are “good enough” and there wouldnt be sufficient ROI

Modern Midrange(Sun,HPUX,AIX_)/PC environments can run in circles around these mainframe systems.

All said, I do believe that the mainframes are much more reliable environments (No crashing/Restarting etc) than the Midrange/PC environments

]]> By: Rick http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7155 Rick Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:20:57 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7155 <p>Hi all,</p> <p>No, I'm sorry to say I don't believe COBOL is faster than big distributed environments. I was a COBOL/CICS programmer for the first 6 years of my career (11 years ago) and currently work for a company that does really massive batch processing. We used to do it on the mainframe-- in ASSEMBLER, no less, but have since switched to a big grid of Linux machines. It's much faster, believe me.</p> <p>BTW, the grid mostly runs C++ and CORBA stuff.... For parallelism, look over tools like Abinitio and Data Stage. These offer pipeline and partition parallelism, with a reasonable development environment.</p> <p>My .02 worth...</p> <p>Best Regards,</p> <p>Rick</p> Hi all,

No, I’m sorry to say I don’t believe COBOL is faster than big distributed environments. I was a COBOL/CICS programmer for the first 6 years of my career (11 years ago) and currently work for a company that does really massive batch processing. We used to do it on the mainframe– in ASSEMBLER, no less, but have since switched to a big grid of Linux machines. It’s much faster, believe me.

BTW, the grid mostly runs C++ and CORBA stuff…. For parallelism, look over tools like Abinitio and Data Stage. These offer pipeline and partition parallelism, with a reasonable development environment.

My .02 worth…

Best Regards,

Rick

]]> By: kajdo http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7154 kajdo Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:40:32 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7154 <p>sorry the previous post was regarding john's comment not henry's ...</p> sorry the previous post was regarding john’s comment not henry’s …

]]> By: kajdo http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7153 kajdo Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:37:32 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7153 <p>@Henry</p> <p>i don't have statistics at hand but if you work in/for such a company just compare the response time of a user command ...</p> <p>just try to update a table using the java-frontend with a cmp/bmp in the db-layer and compare it with the same command using a cics-transaction - you'll be surprised how much time it takes just to dig through all of the j2ee layers to do the update and once again to present the result - i think you don't need scientific statistics to prove the efficiency of the cics-version</p> <p>never tried to code a java-batch but i think if there is something like a vm on the host - it's also clear that this would take longer to interpret than a cobol written batch job (at least cobol was designed for exactly that reason - making as much db operations as possible in a minimum of time) ... btw. a usage of a vm on the host would also need lots of resources i think</p> @Henry

i don’t have statistics at hand but if you work in/for such a company just compare the response time of a user command …

just try to update a table using the java-frontend with a cmp/bmp in the db-layer and compare it with the same command using a cics-transaction – you’ll be surprised how much time it takes just to dig through all of the j2ee layers to do the update and once again to present the result – i think you don’t need scientific statistics to prove the efficiency of the cics-version

never tried to code a java-batch but i think if there is something like a vm on the host – it’s also clear that this would take longer to interpret than a cobol written batch job (at least cobol was designed for exactly that reason – making as much db operations as possible in a minimum of time) … btw. a usage of a vm on the host would also need lots of resources i think

]]> By: Brian Dillard http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7152 Brian Dillard Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:07:13 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7152 <p>@Adam: I'd love to hear how you got involved in writing COBOL, whether you studied it at university or learned on the job, etc.</p> @Adam: I’d love to hear how you got involved in writing COBOL, whether you studied it at university or learned on the job, etc.

]]> By: Adam U. http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7151 Adam U. Thu, 04 Oct 2007 21:45:02 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7151 <p>I'm one of the few people I know under 30 who actually writes Cobol for a living. I'm an ERP programmer, the whole thing is written in Cobol, there is no question that this language is here to stay. However, I'm spending a significant amount of time learning Java. Why? Simple, Cobol isn't fun to code in. Java is "the new Cobol", it will be around forever too, but at least it's a more powerful language.</p> I’m one of the few people I know under 30 who actually writes Cobol for a living. I’m an ERP programmer, the whole thing is written in Cobol, there is no question that this language is here to stay. However, I’m spending a significant amount of time learning Java. Why? Simple, Cobol isn’t fun to code in. Java is “the new Cobol”, it will be around forever too, but at least it’s a more powerful language.

]]> By: John http://pathfindersoftware.com/2007/10/i-have-seen-the/#comment-7150 John Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:03:17 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=234#comment-7150 <p>"COBOL code can still process millions of transactions a day in a fraction of the time it would take to do it in Java"</p> <p>That's completely untrue. Care to backup your argument with statistics? I work for a vendor that supplies systems to financial institutions (COBOL backend/Java frontend), and your comments do not coincide with my experience.</p> “COBOL code can still process millions of transactions a day in a fraction of the time it would take to do it in Java”

That’s completely untrue. Care to backup your argument with statistics? I work for a vendor that supplies systems to financial institutions (COBOL backend/Java frontend), and your comments do not coincide with my experience.

]]>