Subj : Re: COBOL?
To   : Dumas Walker
From : Dr. What
Date : Thu May 04 2023 07:23 am

-=> Dumas Walker wrote to UNIXL0RD <=-

 DW> "COBOL suffers from a 'major image problem' that stems from fundamental
 DW> misperceptions.

Somehow, I doubt it.  If that's the problem with COBOL, it's also the problem
with FORTRAN.

 DW> When a group of academic and industry researchers asked

Ahhh... Now I see where the reality distortion field comes in.  8)

 DW> The article goes on to speculate that the COBOL's perception problem
 DW> stems from "IT leaders" who were familiar with COBOL no longer being
 DW> the ones making decisions.

No.  I think it has to do with companies figuring out that big IBM mainframes
may not be the best solution for their needs and that COBOL has some pretty
severe limitations.

Speaking of the 2 very large corporations that I have experience with (one was
a large warehouse system, the other a large retailer), both had multi-year
plans to phase out COBOL.  By the time I left those companies, they were well
on their way down that plan, and both had done big changes to their COBOL
developer corps (some layoffs, some retraining).

However, like weight loss, where that last 10% to your goal is hard, getting
rid of that last 10% of the COBOL code might take a while.


.... We'll burn that bridge when we come to it.
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