cobol, Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

by **Pete Dashwood** » Fri, 08 May 2009 08:53:01 GMT

Micro Focus have bought Borland (or what was left of it after Embarcadero
took the choice bits).

http://www.sdtimes.com/link/33459

I always had a soft spot for Borland. Sorry to see them go.

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."

by **paoloricardo** » Fri, 08 May 2009 10:21:59 GMT

On May 8, 10:53m, "Pete Dashwood"

I thought VisOCOBOL was Turbo COBOL!

I agree with you about Borland, Pete. They brought excellent value
compilers in C, BASIC, C++ and Pascal to 'the masses', along with an
excellent text mode windowing library known as TurboVision. I still
have these compilers and am still using them. For me, Delphi was one
of the best RAD tools for Windows with an elegantly designed OO
version of Pascal known as Object Pascal.

Paul - Melbourne, Australia.

by **Rene_Surop** » Mon, 11 May 2009 08:47:32 GMT

A Warren Buffet style of "existence".... buying a company to be even
better (or it may bring downward trend, IF they bought a bad apple).
Stephen Kelly first came into the picture by acquiring AccuCobol, and
stepping up until then. I would personally think that in this time of
financial crisis, their acquisition will put them later in an
excellent position.

It's really a game of chess in business. I could probably say it is
right, maybe if MF will try to think of Turbo COBOL... and offering it
for free, then it will be a Cobol Rocks The World 'again'.

by **Pete Dashwood** » Mon, 11 May 2009 11:38:12 GMT

The COST of a COBOL compiler is a contributing factor to COBOL's decline,
but it is not a major factor. (The OVERALL cost or "cost of ownership" when
you consider what it costs to maintain procedural code as opposed to
maintaining object oriented components, IS an important factor. The point is
that if they gave it away it still wouldn't change perception or reality.)

Much more important reasons are that the COBOL paradigm is of limited
relevance in today's environments, and the fact that other languages
(whether we like to admit it or not) are simply better suited to Network
programming. You can argue that COBOL is well suited to a centralized batch
processing environment (and you'd be right...), you can argue that COBOL can
do what many of the newer languages can do (and you'd be right again, but
now you are on a sticky wicket because being able to do something and being
able to do it efficiently, quickly, cheaply, and easily, are two importantly
different considerations), or you can argue "Well, I've always used COBOL
and everything I want to do I can do in COBOL" and it becomes apparent that
you have limited horizons and are not really interested in modern computing,
or even getting the maximum and best from COBOL. (That, of course, is a your
prerogative and a perfectly valid choice; my comment was not intended to be
judgemental...)

I have a friend who learned BASIC for the Sinclair Spectrum (taught
himself... a true enthusiast). When he found he could use BASIC on his PC
he was delighted. But he still expects things to work as they did on his
Sinclair Spectrum... He has never moved on to Visual Basic and so he can
never move on to .NET. The concepts of objects and components are just
mysterious and confusing to him. (Yet he is far from being an idiot...) He
told me the last time I saw him that he was going to get into Web
programming because he found the desktop so limited... I hope he does. Doing
so will expand his BASIC horizons as well.

The existing COBOL codebase cannot guarantee COBOL jobs indefinitely. COBOL
programmers need to use this breathing space to expand skill sets, and add
more tools to the toolbox.

BTW, Rene, I am not sure if private mail I sent you was received. Can you
check please? May have been thrown in the junkmail folder... :-)

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."

by **William M. Klein** » Mon, 11 May 2009 15:37:02 GMT

re:
"> The COST of a COBOL compiler is a contributing factor to COBOL's decline,

I think that the original Fujitsu V3 "free COBOL" that INCLUDED "OO COBOL" (at a
time whether there were both more COBOL applications and more programmers)
pretty well "proves" that NEITHER the paradigm nor the cost is what did kill (or
is killing) COBOL.

It is SO much perception *and* the fact that "converting" existing procedural
COBOL to OO COBOL is usually "not viable" (Why fix it, if it isn't broken).
This meant that existing programs and programmers never (seriously) considered
the conversion (or retraining) and that the "new COBOL" was not of interest to
"new programmers".

(Gross generalization in above statement, but the "general" view is what I think
did happen) Perception matters; actual availability and functionality is almost
in "last place" when selecting a programming language (especially for "new"
programmers).

--
Bill Klein
wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com

by **riplin** » Mon, 11 May 2009 16:35:20 GMT

On May 11, 7:37m, "William M. Klein" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >

Not only that, but the OO features in C++ fixed problems in C that
were not a problem in Cobol or in the applications that were written
in Cobol.

For example OO caters for a class to create multiple objects, but
Cobol applications generally deal with one object and serially reuse
it. eg in processing transactions each could be created as an object
of the transaction class _or_ just have a transaction record area and
read each transaction into that one at a time.

As it happens I have found uses for OO Cobol. In using templates I
call a template program passing the array of name/value pairs to
merge. The template program only supports a single output stream at a
time. Implementing this as OO and having the templating as a class
means that several template streams can be created at the same time
without complications that would be caused in non-OO.

Or just output each template completely and then reset and output the
next stream.

>> This meant that existing programs and programmers never (seriously) considered >> the conversion (or retraining) and that the "new COBOL" was not of interest to >> "new programmers". >> >> (Gross generalization in above statement, but the "general" view is what I think >> did happen) erception matters; actual availability and functionality is almost >> in "last place" when selecting a programming language (especially for "new" >> programmers). >> >> -- >> Bill Klein >> mklein< ix.netcom.com

by **Pete Dashwood** » Mon, 11 May 2009 20:01:50 GMT

illiam M. Klein wrote:

I disagree, but I enjoyed your post and I don't disagree as vehemently as
you might think :-)

At the time the V3 COBOL was made available Micro Focus had just stranded
the VisOC user base and withdrawn support for a product that people were
just starting to take an interest in. Fujitsu were quick to fill the gap,
and I, for one, was surprised by the quality of their product.

I have never had a beef with Fujitsu products; they have invariably been of
the highest standard. They suffered from bad English documentation, but that
was fixed. The rot set in when the American company laid off the people who
had provided fantastic support and replaced them with people who were
useless, and then went on to use the pointless remote registration scheme
which was supposed to protect against piracy but just caused inconvenience
and worry and succeeded in alienating much of what remained of the user
base. Honest users were unable to make copies of a mission critical software
development system.

And it meant your business was in the hands of the Casper system running
(hopefully) on a remote server somewhere in the USA. I say it was pointless;
it can be circumvented in minutes by anyone using modern techniques and
tools. If I WANTED to make a living out of pirating Fujitsu COBOL (hollow
laughter... like, who would want it?) I could produce as many unlocked
copies as I wanted to. I haven't and I wouldn't. But the fact that I can be
trusted (just like most of the professional user base) apparently cuts no
ice with Fujitsu.

I absolutely agree that perception is a major player here. And I agree with
you that most COBOL sites "strongly resisted" the advent of OO COBOL. The
trouble is that now awareness is rising and it is too late for COBOL. I am
less upset about "user resistance and apathy" than I was a few years back. I
take your point that if something is working it is very hard to persuade
someone to change it. (When a certain approach has been working for DECADES
it is even harder. It requires imagination, knowledge of the industry, and
vision.) Nevertheless, it wouldn't have hurt to run a few pilot projects and
invest in some training... And I still haven't forgotten the scorn and even
vitriol with which posts here suggesting OO might be important and worth
looking at were received. (It was the same with RDB... I should have learned
:-) )

Anyone who was looking at what was happening in the industry could have
foreseen that OO was going to be a major player, but instead the Priests of
COBOL hunkered down in their fortresses hoping that the barbarians would
ride on past them. Most of the Barbarians did. They realised that slow
moving, heavily armoured, COBOL knights on large warhorses were no match for
their agility and speed, and, besides, COBOL was sowing the seeds of its own
destruction, no innovation (actually, there WAS innovation and OO COBOL was
released by a number of vendors DESPITE it not being in the standard - the
user base just rejected it), and 17 years to agree a standard, so they left
them in their fortresses.

When the castle gates finally opened the inmates emerged to a changed world.
A world where their one true religion was largely irrelevant. Anything the
Knights of COBOL could do, the Barbarians could do faster, cheaper, and more
elegantly. (Except for one thing, which was being overtaken by events

by **Howard Brazee** » Mon, 11 May 2009 23:15:50 GMT

On Mon, 11 May 2009 15:38:12 +1200, "Pete Dashwood"

I'm disappointed in that "Total Cost of Ownership" doesn't seem to get
analyzed sufficiently. Instead "costs that go against my budget" are
much more important in decision making.

One reason it is so easy to find Java programmers, is that Java
programming has a low cost of entry. Shops don't need to worry about
finding Java programmers, and training costs seem minimal.

Same thing with hardware. Mainframe makers need to price their
products more obviously based upon usage, so that mainframes compete
with "just add another server". But that doesn't help when a
company can test out a service really cheaply without making a
commitment to upgrade later, unless that service is easy to add onto
the mainframe.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

by **Howard Brazee** » Mon, 11 May 2009 23:20:50 GMT

On Tue, 12 May 2009 00:01:50 +1200, "Pete Dashwood"

I don't think it was the Priests so much as the congregations. My
job is comfortable doing what I'm doing now, why should I make things
difficult on my co-workers by researching how to get an OO program
through Endevor and the process - and then having other CoBOL
programmers not know how to maintain it? I'm just here until
retirement - or maybe I'm a contractor with limited authority and
freedom to vary from de-facto standards.

That tends to be how revolutions happen.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

by **billg999** » Mon, 11 May 2009 23:44:45 GMT

In article < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >,
Howard Brazee < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > writes:

Or maybe the the Priest actually saw that the emperor really had not clothes
on at all!! I know some really large COBOL shops. None of them sees any
reason why they should change all that existing COBOL to anything OO. And
that even with the local academics all shouting as loudly as they cane that
"COBOL is dead, long live OO!!"

bill

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
XXXX@XXXXX.COM | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>

by **William M. Klein** » Tue, 12 May 2009 00:18:11 GMT

Much snippage, but see comment to which I reply below

--
Bill Klein
wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com

<snip>
<snip>

Pete,
I wish that sometime you could visit SHARE (IBM mainframe user group). I
think you would be surprised how many fortune 500 companies (in the US) see the
mainframe as PART of their future - and included in this is COBOL. Things like
XML COBOL with and without SOA, CICS, etc are where LOTS of new development is
being done.

I know that DD, Arnold, Howard and a few other contractors who work with IBM
mainframe COBOL post in this forum. However, I do think that this part of the
existing COBOL base is significantly "under-represented" in comp.lang.cobol.

It may (or may not) be true/representative, but using "Usenet" (or even other
web based) "forums for discussing programming and language issues is NOT in the
"toolbox" of most of those in the environments where COBOL does still thrive.
It is also my impression that most of the shops doing major NEW development in
COBOL use "employees" and not contractors. This is another reason they are
under-represented in this forum.

I don't want to give the impression that I think that COBOL is always (or even
usually) the language of choice for new development in any environment.
HOWEVER, I do think that there is significant COBOL development being done - in
an environment that is NOT visible in comp.lang.cobol.

by **Howard Brazee** » Tue, 12 May 2009 02:43:08 GMT

On Mon, 11 May 2009 11:18:11 -0500, "William M. Klein"

I think a high percent of mainframe CoBOL programmers have limited
interest in exploring possibilities of the language - they are much
less likely to join a forum such as this. Those who have enough
interest to join are more likely to try new things. (Or those with
freedom to try new things may be more likely to be interested in
them).

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

by **Pete Dashwood** » Tue, 12 May 2009 07:02:48 GMT

That is an ostrich viewpoint, Bill.

My piece was written with a degree of tongue-in-cheek but I mostly believe
what I wrote.

The reality is that it IS difficult for people who have worked a certain way
for years to believe that something new could be better. Especially when
there have been "false alarms" over the years (who could forget "The Last
One" closely followed a few years later by "The Next One". :-)).

Your large shops who see no reason to change will be overtaken by events as
surely as the dinosaurs were overtaken by the comet. It will take time, but
it will happen.

Procedural COBOL has a very limited remaining life span and I'm not saying
this as an Academic; I'm saying it as one who has spent 40 years living and
working in the real workplace.

Inability to see the Emperor's new clothes does not mean that the Emperor is
naked.

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."

by **Pete Dashwood** » Tue, 12 May 2009 07:26:29 GMT

illiam M. Klein wrote:

I'd like that. :-)

OK.

Why do you suppose that is, Bill?

Is there still a culture of non-Internet/Usenet awareness and the idea that
PCs are toys and only mainframes are "real" computers?

So what planet are these people living on? No wonder COBOL is a tiny
minority of the programming community.

This forum is not exclusively populated by contractors. There are many
permanent employees who lurk here. Some of them don't post because they
don't want to be publicly identified by their Boss or colleagues. On
occasion I have urged people who contacted me privately to post here and
they won't. It is also interesting that of the considerable number of people
who have registered on the web site since we first published the cobdata
tool, only a handful are names I recognise from this forum.

I believe there are COBOL people who DO want to know. If they work on one of
the sites you are describing there is no incentive for them to expand their
horizons. It is "same old, same old" as long as the site management can get
away with it.

I guess it depends what you mean by "significant". In the context of all the
programming going on in the world today it is NOT significant. This is a
marked change from 20 years ago when it WAS significant and 30 years ago
when it was major.

I accept what you say and I know there are big sites where change comes
slowly. Nevertheless, these sites are under mounting pressure to adapt and
their main justification at the moment is the huge volumes of batch
processing they carry out. Over time that will slowly dissipate as better
transactional processing is introduced. It won't happen overnight, but it
will happen.

Here's a fun idea: Copy my hypothetical question from the start of this
message and circulate it round the next SHARE meeting. Ensure that they can
respond anonymously and see what the response is. If it is an overwhelming:
"No, I'm sticking with COBOL" then I'll stand corrected (at least as far as
"mainframe heartland" goes...)

You might also encourage some of them to post here... :-)

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."

by **Pete Dashwood** » Tue, 12 May 2009 07:27:47 GMT

Sadly, I think you're right.

Just look at all the fun they are missing! :-)

Pete.

--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."

cobol, Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

cobol >> Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

cobol >> Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

cobol >> Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)

Coming soon: Turbo COBOL from Micro Focus :-)