I'm registered to take this next term. I start it in about three weeks from now. Woo Hoo, Cobol!
I'm registered to take this next term. I start it in about three weeks from now. Woo Hoo, Cobol!
Although there is still a lot of legacy COBOL code out there, and there was a bit of a panic with the 2000 problem so a few contractors made a quick buck, I remain somewhat suprised that COBOL is still being taught in schools as anything other than a historical note.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity unto the dream.
Make no mistake, my alegience is with C/C++, however since I started almost 2 years ago, Cobol is not phased out. The new students don't have to take it. I'm not going to go into too much detail, infact I'm going to continue studying C++ at the same time. I would rather be taking C# or something though.
It simply suprised me that it was still a viable college subject at all. The last time I was involved with an academic establishment was in 1985 and COBOL was being phased out of the curriculum.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity unto the dream.
They said that there were still 50,000 jobs in North America for Cobol programmers but this figure was being reduced by something like 2,500 each year. I don't get it either, but I've been thinking. I need some easy course so that I can do some self studying. I beieve that it would have been possible to avoid this course but than I might of had to wait until the new cirriculum caught up to me. I'm in a dilemma. Is Cobol OOP? If it is procedural like C than I may actualy study some more C along side it. I really like OOP, however I'm in no rush to master OOP because I have not gotten all the value out of C. The Win32 API is C, the operating system is C, I think many database API's are C. I can even study algorithms and carry them over into OOP. Ultimately the Cobol course itself will be a historical look. I don't mind. I'm not quite ready to storm OOP and managed languages.
one of my cats is called Cobol
Do not meddle in the ways of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup
Cool!!!!! I'm going to pass for sure now!
>>> one of my cats is called Cobol
The mind boggles at the names of the other(s)!
>>> Is Cobol OOP?
Absurdly, I have heard there is a version called object COBOL, but I've never seen it. The COBOL commonly in use is procedural and has not changed much since there legendary Grace Hopper's ideas in the late '50's.
About all I remember is the various program divisions, the source and destination computer bits, and all the data "PIC" pictures. I can honestly say I hated it.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity unto the dream.
Fortran, Java and Delphi (and nope i am not kidding - the trick is though to get them to learn the languages they are named after - not having much luck there!)The mind boggles at the names of the other(s)!
Do not meddle in the ways of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup
>>> learn the languages they are named after
Big problem of course. Although cats have an instinctive attraction towards the mouse.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity unto the dream.
They know the languages they're named after, they're just not letting you know they know, they are cats after all.
and Adrian, that joke nearly got you reported to a moderator
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself.
Wow, cobol is still alive. Hell the military (for the most part) is past that. Well good like to you.
Instructor told me today that we have to learn it so that we can port existing business applications to OOP.
there are sadly still a lot of legacy business systems programmed in cobol - coming up to Y2K cobol programmers were in exceptional demand in the UK and could almost write their own pay cheques as companies were desperate to have their cobol programmes fixed and there were so few cobol programmers about. (I wish i had known the language as i was getting offered almost double the amount of money i normally make)
I suppose at some stage in the future all those companies will finally get down from the trees and start porting these progs to other platforms
Do not meddle in the ways of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup
