Anyone (like me) still in the 20th Century writing COBOL?

[Kennah]

Been writing COBOL for 20 years, and there's a big ol' meteor coming; however, a lot of Cobolasaurs are in denial.

I'm 44 and I know I won't retire writing COBOL. Wait, retirement is a reality that is slipping away from all of us. Forget that. Moving on.

Spend a lot of my time patching piss poor code, and I sometimes all but guess what the code does. On a positive note, it really stretches one's powers of omniscience.

Today I spent about 90 minutes chasing down totals on a summary report because it was SO counter intuitive. My client was trying to figure out anything because she has to give the auditor her answers tomorrow. I stayed late and chased it to the ground so that I could give her something substantive. Sent a request to Operations to recover the data file. Well it was half request and half beg because I am not sure they'll be able to respond in time. I am all but certain of my answers, but if I get the data file I can speak with absolute certainty.

A few additional counts, a little structure, some indenting, and anyone at a glance could have read the report and known what the numbers mean. Sounds silly, but those kinds of dopey little changes mean a lot. Make those changes and this mole will be whacked.

Client likes me, boss likes me, get along well with my coworkers, money ain't shit, but the State of Washington is a stable employer. Lot of VB.NET and SQL Server experience in my office, and that clearly is their future direction for conversions.

Two of my friends from a previous job are interviewing this week for open positions. With a little luck, they will both get hired on and one and half of them will be working with me. We're all probably within 2-3 years of each other, and we would jump at the opportunity to convert an application and our skillsets.

I've done a lot of Access and VBA building Operational Data Stores. COBOL to VB is actually a pretty smooth syntactical transition.

Anyone done any COBOL conversion projects? I will probably be playing whack-a-mole for some time, but both the client and I are interested in rehosting the application.

[ManiacJoe]

1. Spent four years doing conversions from COBOL.

1998-2003, converting a medical claims system from mainframe/COBOL to Windows/SQL-Server/C++. We normally did not need to read the COBOL, but every now and then we would need to compare the "old requirements" vs what the COBOL was doing vs what the actual business needs were. If the "old requirements" docs still existed....

While five C++ programmers were converting the system, two COBOL programmers maintained the system dealing mostly with Y2K issues. Two VB programmers worked on side projects that sometimes interfaced with the SQL/C++ system we were creating.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. Last time I wrote COBAL it was on punched cards (1980?)

and basic was 99 lines.

Would have been easier if I had my i-pad.

[ChromeFoundry]

3. Converted a lot of COBOL to .Net

and from DB2/VSAM over to MS SQL Server -- About 10 years ago.
Data migration was done with DTS and then SSIS later in the project.

VB.Net and C# are really not that far apart if you understand the framework. I would stick to the C++/C#/Java syntax... VB is still dying a slow death.
PowerShell is becoming very popular across all of Microsoft's Server products. It's like the new/better VBScript.

[Kennah]

4. I was wondering about the future of VB ...

... but I think I would be fighting a now entrenched VB culture. COBOL system I inherited was written in 1991, and although it has been added onto, there was been no attempts to overhaul the system. Write it and leave it in place is the tendency in state government.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

5. VB.NET will be around for a long time

Hell, there are thousands of VB6 applications still in production. I've worked with both C#.NET and VB.NET, and they aren't all that different. The syntax is different, but that's about it - a .NET app is a .NET app, no matter which flavor of language was used to build it. There are a ton of applications written in VB.NET, and the beauty of the .NET system is that it lets you extend those applications with whichever .NET tool you prefer.

Ironically, C# really owes its existence to Visual Basic. In their heyday, VB 5 and 6 were the fastest and easiest ways to build business applications. The "real" programmers who worked with C and C++ (and some other, archaic languages) were dismissive of the VB language, but when Microsoft built the .NET Framework, they used a Rapid Application Development model like VB to launch C#.

[Kennah]

6. I will inherit some VB6

One of my coworkers does a lot of VB6, and some it I could probably do with AutoIt.

There is a push to try and replace all our VB6 code with VB.NET

[hootinholler]

13. "they used a Rapid Application Development model like VB to launch C#"

ORLY???

I guess losing that lawsuit to Sun had nothing to do with it.

[AgingAmerican]

17. VB.net

...and the other .net languages all compile to the same thing, so it doesn't matter which language you use with it. .Net is awesome for Windows programming.

VB was my first language, it will always have a special place in my heart, especially control arrays.

[AgingAmerican]

18. Many programmers consider VB a 'toy' language

Even though VB.NET and C# essentially compile to the same thing. I agree that VB is on the way out, has been for ten years. A lot of people cut their teeth on that language, myself included.

Never did any COBOL. Sounds like fun debugging old code though, I got really good at debugging other peoples code when I tutored programming in college.

[naragdaban]

7. Not me personally

But my first cousin (who's 25 years older than me) had the job of updating a lot of legacy stuff back in the early 2000's. It was the first time I'd actually seen COBOL, as I was just starting out as a programmer in those days.

[HopeHoops]

8. I've never WRITTEN it, but always been able to read it - turn the listing upside down.

With all due respect to the late great Commodore Grace Hopper, I find the language too tedious to bother with, but then again, we wouldn't have made the leap to compiled code so early if she hadn't been a pain in the ass about making it happen. My favorite quote of hers is "It's easier to apologize than it is to get permission."

That said, when I was in college I was already a computer geek (I'm older than you by a few years). The CS students all came to me with their COBOL, Fortran and Pascal listings (the two of which I DO know well). If it was COBOL, I would just flip the 2" listing upside down and peel down the back page to look at the code. The format statements have nothing to do with logic errors, most of which were simple (like initializing a loop with 1 instead of 0).

If you're considering jumping to VB, I would recommend you go with C# instead. It isn't as straight forward a leap, but it will have greater longevity. I still consider VB to be a pro-typing language. As much as I resisted moving from C++ to C#, I do have to admit that the latter fits well with the VS10 environment and has some advantages such as out-of-scope memory management.

One last piece of advice. Only concentrate on the core routines which translate directly. Use your talent and imagination to create a more up-to-date interface and add new features at will. I loved WordStar, but I wouldn't want to be stuck with that now (sorry for the analogy, but it might not be far off).

[SnowCritter]

9. Haven't written in COBOL in years,

but just last year I had to use my knowledge of COBOL to convert some data related to a criminal investigation.

Was quite a trip down memory lane.

[Kennah]

11. Some days, writing COBOL feels like a criminal offense

[SnowCritter]

12. Well, it is -

if you write "spaghetti code" like my supervisor (during the time I was writing in COBOL) did. He'd get out his "GOTO" shaker and sprinkle liberally throughout the code.

[sammuel]

10. Spam deleted by TBF (MIR Team)

[Stroked]

14. RPG

My wife wrote in RPG for 17 years and then lost her job. She just wants to code - no analysis. We are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin area and wonder if there is some good fit for her. Any ideas?

[Kennah]

15. RPG is probably as rare as Assembler

However, I did find a couple of hits on Indeed.com

http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=rpg&l=Milwaukee%2C+WI

[valerief]

16. I did COBOL for 10 years until I got the RIF in December.

I'm back with the same firm but in a different job, outside of the mf dev group. That's been moving to India and now China. Of course.