Steve Jones - SSC Editor (2/25/2013)

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Was this the "right to left" execution of instructions for math/stats? I took a language like that in college. Hated it, but then again, I never like matrix math and lots of that was involved in our course.

pdanes (2/22/2013)

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It's not obsolete if it still does the job it was designed to do. I've written my share of FORTRAN, RPG, COBOL and who knows what else over the years. No idea if any of it is still running somewhere, but if so, great! There are plenty of tasks that need attention, without inventing silly make-work like replacing fully functional existing code.

Things are only obsolete if they can no longer perform their assigned function. COBOL does not fit that definition by any stretch of the imagination.

There are shops that develop new applications in COBOL today, and do an enormous amount of useful work. Just because it doesn't fit someone's idea of 'the latest and greatest' doesn't mean it's a bad idea to use it.

Carla Wilson-484785 (2/22/2013)

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LOL! Does anyone remember APL, "A Programming Language"? That's what hooked me in 1975, because it was an interactive terminal (keyboard, no CRT) back when all the other computer programming classes at my university were key-punched cards with overnight processing. I used it to write some interactive basic statistics tutorials for the statistics class I had just taken (probability and permutations versus combinations).

Are there any set based languages besides SQL?

pdanes (2/22/2013)

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It's not obsolete if it still does the job it was designed to do. I've written my share of FORTRAN, RPG, COBOL and who knows what else over the years. No idea if any of it is still running somewhere, but if so, great! There are plenty of tasks that need attention, without inventing silly make-work like replacing fully functional existing code.

Things are only obsolete if they can no longer perform their assigned function. COBOL does not fit that definition by any stretch of the imagination.

There are shops that develop new applications in COBOL today, and do an enormous amount of useful work. Just because it doesn't fit someone's idea of 'the latest and greatest' doesn't mean it's a bad idea to use it.

Eric M Russell (2/25/2013)

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COBOL is obsolete in the same way that VHS tapes, the Latin language, and muzzle loaded rilfes are obsolete. Of course it's still widely in use, and still works the way it was originally intended, just like all those other things.

Dave62 (2/25/2013)

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The point remains that there is wisdom in not re-writing an entire application for no other reason than to change the language.

Those who understand this still have COBOL applications working well today.

Those who don't understand it waste time and money re-inventing the wheel.

Miles Neale (2/25/2013)

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Dave,

Would you suggest developing a massive new system that is PC friendly in COBOL? ...

Dave62 (2/26/2013)

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Definitely not.

I do .NET development and SQL Server development/administration. The last company I worked for had a lot of COBOL running on an AS400. We would leave the COBOL alone as long as it was running fine and didn't need anything new added. As soon as maintenance issues or new features came up we would work on a conversion path.

We had no need, interest, or time to bother with re-writing it just for the sake of changing the language.