The 40-year-old programming language is still in
demandWhat is it?
There are more than 200 billion lines of working Cobol code and
five billion lines of Cobol are written every year.
Industry analyst Bloor Research said, "This code is not going away
because rewriting an application is believed to be five times more
expensive than re-using existing applications."
So how do mainframe users reconcile their need to move into the
Java and web-enabled future, with the fact that their business
systems are founded in a 40-year-old programming language?
Where did it originate?
In 1959 the US Department of Defense convened Codasyl, the
Committee on Data Systems Languages, which went on to develop the
Common Business Orientated Language.
Intended to be machine-independent - but in practice vulnerable to
extensions - Cobol came under the control of the American National
Standards Institute and the International Standards Organisation.
The most important revisions of Cobol were in 1974, 1985 and 2002.
What is it for?
IBM launched Version 3.3 of Enterprise Cobol in May. It
interoperates with Java so that Cobol applications can access
chunks of code called Enterprise Java Beans that run on a
J2EE-compliant EJB server, such as IBM's Websphere Application
Server. Developers can write re-usable EJB in Cobol 3.3 on
Websphere z/OS and use them in different environments.
Enterprise Cobol 3.3 also has XML capabilities, meaning Cobol
applications can process XML in the most popular mainframe
environments, such as Cics, IMS and MQSeries and populate Cobol
data structures with the content of XML documents.
What makes it special
Cobol code can be re-used without duplicating it in Java.
Do you need extra skills?
Cobol specialists should take IBM's Websphere Studio Enterprise
Developer courses.
Where is it used?
On zSeries mainframes.
What systems does it run on?
IBM also provides Cobol compilers for 0S/390, VSE, AS/400, AIX and
Windows. The leading independent Cobol supplier is MicroFocus, with
Mainframe Express. Others include Accucorp and LegacyJ.
What is coming up?
Enhanced Cobol interoperability with Enterprise Java Beans,
including development tools to allow Cobol programs to be loaded
into Websphere Application Server for z/OS operating system.