Cobol, Is It Going Away?Essay Preview: Cobol, Is It Going Away?Report this essayOn May 28, 1959, the Conference of Data Systems Languages (CODASYL) met for the first time with the idea of developing a universal language for building business applications. That language was COBOL. By 1960, COBOL was commercially ready, and for the next 20 years, more programs were written in COBOL than in any other language. Influenced by FORTRAN, a programming language for the scientific community, and FlowMatic, the group recognized the growing needs of the business community. They thought that if the scientific programmers were going to get a single language, they could do the same for business. In April 1959, at an informal meeting at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, a small group of computer manufacturers, large users and academics asked the Department of Defense (DOD) to head the efforts (The Creation of COBOL,Brandel). The next month, the DOD called the first meeting of CODASYL, which consisted of eight computer manufacturers and a few large users. The DOD broke CODASYL into several committees, and by June, the nine member “short-range committee” was asked to undertake a six-month investigation into developing the language. DOD made COBOL mandatory for all suppliers of computing hardware and software who were bidding of defense procurements (Encyclopedia of Comp.Sci.,page350). This pressure resulted in persuading other suppliers to adopt COBOL also and thus the programming language took off.
In addition to machine independence, one of the most important requirements of the language was simplicity. The committee wanted the language to be readable by laypeople, which led to the idea of using English (The Creation of COBOL,Brandel). In addition, computer manufacturers were trying to develop their commercial COBOL compilers while COBOLs specifications were being defined (Creation of COBOL,Brandel). A complete specification was finished in just six months. That was in December 1959. In 1974, COBOL officially changed to four-digit date fields, but that change obviously didnt catch on right away. The COBOL creators played a huge part in the famous Y2K problem because of the use of two-digit year fields they used and did not fix in time. This huge problem cost many companies millions and they say that many of these companies will not solve the problem within their own business until even as late as 2008.
The Y2K problem effected the world as a whole and showed COBOLs impact globally. Analyst firm Gartner estimates that applications managing about 85 percent of the worlds business data are written in COBOL. No other language promotes as successfully a simple, self-documenting programming style. It is a fully developed standard with a proven track record, and is probably the most portable language. A program that was built to run on an IBM 390 in Germany will run on an HP3000 in Australia (www.tgc.com/dsstar/00/0404/101467.html). Whats more, it is an existing standard, where other contenders like the Java language are yet to be. New COBOL standards are emerging that specifically support the Web with CGI scripting and XML support, as well as new data tools such as SQL Server, DB2, and Oracle. These new standards will result in future use of COBOL throughout the global enterprise (www.aboutlegacy.com/get_email.html).
As I researched COBOL I found it very interesting that although some companies are weeding out the use of COBOL, many others are not. I focused on the fact that while computer science students at large universities focus on newer languages such as C++ and Java, companies like Safeco, Computer Horizons Corp., and Spiegel Group still need COBOL programmers to maintain current mainframe computer systems. I also found the starting salary ranges for these companies and that these ranges were rising as a whole with these companies and others as well. This has led me to believe that COBOL, the 40-year-old computer language isnt going anywhere in the near future, and specifically for these companies in their future business plans.
The COBOL Standards in the Public Classroom, 1999-2010: How COBOL Is Affected by Global Warming? The CBA’s 2003 COBOL Standards are a series of recommendations to the Board of Governors and the National Academy of Sciences that will: (a) Make it easier for school districts to use COBOL to provide information on the scientific basis for decision-making related to climate change and (b) Make it easier for schools to use COBOL as a benchmark for future scientific research in high school math and science education programs and other educational and civic work with COBOL-based content. The changes announced today by the Federal Register and signed by four of the five presidents of the United States will improve the use of COBOL to address these concerns, which are part of the very fundamental need for science to address all human, environmental, and societal problems. In contrast, the Federal Register, a very important source of federal scientific reporting, does not require any new content before beginning, as it is required under the Federal Register. The CBA will make its decision at the beginning of the next session on March 3rd as to whether to support, oppose, or reject the CBA and which COBOL content to bring to its drafting session for that session. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Organizations of America (SIA) for its 10 years of the 20th anniversary of the first edition of its World Wide Web site (http://www.stb.si.edu) and the Federal Register on its 9 years are working together to make the CBA a more robust, public resource and as part of a new public statement on information about COBOL from January 20, 2013, and to establish a national consensus that has the potential to help create a broader public debate about scientific research and the role of science in policy. Many other organizations support and develop similar standards, including the National Association of Boards of Education, the American Psychological Association, the National Science Foundation (www.sci.org) and the American Statistical Association (www.stat.org). In addition to the proposed COBOL Standards and COBOL Principles, the CBA has proposed major changes to the National Academy of Sciences’ (NGAA) COBOL Standards, including: (a) making information on the National Academy of Sciences’s (NGAA) COBOL Standards clearer. (b) creating the current National Library of Science’s (NGOS) COBOL Standards, which the Board will meet in December in Washington with a range of stakeholders from academic organizations, educators, and scientists. The new standards include: (i) identifying the criteria for the acceptance of COBOL with no mention of alternatives to such standards and (ii) adopting a policy framework to better guide evaluation of what is acceptable and unacceptable to policymakers and public institutions with respect to scientific research. (c)
The COBOL Standards in the Public Classroom, 1999-2010: How COBOL Is Affected by Global Warming? The CBA’s 2003 COBOL Standards are a series of recommendations to the Board of Governors and the National Academy of Sciences that will: (a) Make it easier for school districts to use COBOL to provide information on the scientific basis for decision-making related to climate change and (b) Make it easier for schools to use COBOL as a benchmark for future scientific research in high school math and science education programs and other educational and civic work with COBOL-based content. The changes announced today by the Federal Register and signed by four of the five presidents of the United States will improve the use of COBOL to address these concerns, which are part of the very fundamental need for science to address all human, environmental, and societal problems. In contrast, the Federal Register, a very important source of federal scientific reporting, does not require any new content before beginning, as it is required under the Federal Register. The CBA will make its decision at the beginning of the next session on March 3rd as to whether to support, oppose, or reject the CBA and which COBOL content to bring to its drafting session for that session. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Organizations of America (SIA) for its 10 years of the 20th anniversary of the first edition of its World Wide Web site (http://www.stb.si.edu) and the Federal Register on its 9 years are working together to make the CBA a more robust, public resource and as part of a new public statement on information about COBOL from January 20, 2013, and to establish a national consensus that has the potential to help create a broader public debate about scientific research and the role of science in policy. Many other organizations support and develop similar standards, including the National Association of Boards of Education, the American Psychological Association, the National Science Foundation (www.sci.org) and the American Statistical Association (www.stat.org). In addition to the proposed COBOL Standards and COBOL Principles, the CBA has proposed major changes to the National Academy of Sciences’ (NGAA) COBOL Standards, including: (a) making information on the National Academy of Sciences’s (NGAA) COBOL Standards clearer. (b) creating the current National Library of Science’s (NGOS) COBOL Standards, which the Board will meet in December in Washington with a range of stakeholders from academic organizations, educators, and scientists. The new standards include: (i) identifying the criteria for the acceptance of COBOL with no mention of alternatives to such standards and (ii) adopting a policy framework to better guide evaluation of what is acceptable and unacceptable to policymakers and public institutions with respect to scientific research. (c)
The COBOL Standards in the Public Classroom, 1999-2010: How COBOL Is Affected by Global Warming? The CBA’s 2003 COBOL Standards are a series of recommendations to the Board of Governors and the National Academy of Sciences that will: (a) Make it easier for school districts to use COBOL to provide information on the scientific basis for decision-making related to climate change and (b) Make it easier for schools to use COBOL as a benchmark for future scientific research in high school math and science education programs and other educational and civic work with COBOL-based content. The changes announced today by the Federal Register and signed by four of the five presidents of the United States will improve the use of COBOL to address these concerns, which are part of the very fundamental need for science to address all human, environmental, and societal problems. In contrast, the Federal Register, a very important source of federal scientific reporting, does not require any new content before beginning, as it is required under the Federal Register. The CBA will make its decision at the beginning of the next session on March 3rd as to whether to support, oppose, or reject the CBA and which COBOL content to bring to its drafting session for that session. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Organizations of America (SIA) for its 10 years of the 20th anniversary of the first edition of its World Wide Web site (http://www.stb.si.edu) and the Federal Register on its 9 years are working together to make the CBA a more robust, public resource and as part of a new public statement on information about COBOL from January 20, 2013, and to establish a national consensus that has the potential to help create a broader public debate about scientific research and the role of science in policy. Many other organizations support and develop similar standards, including the National Association of Boards of Education, the American Psychological Association, the National Science Foundation (www.sci.org) and the American Statistical Association (www.stat.org). In addition to the proposed COBOL Standards and COBOL Principles, the CBA has proposed major changes to the National Academy of Sciences’ (NGAA) COBOL Standards, including: (a) making information on the National Academy of Sciences’s (NGAA) COBOL Standards clearer. (b) creating the current National Library of Science’s (NGOS) COBOL Standards, which the Board will meet in December in Washington with a range of stakeholders from academic organizations, educators, and scientists. The new standards include: (i) identifying the criteria for the acceptance of COBOL with no mention of alternatives to such standards and (ii) adopting a policy framework to better guide evaluation of what is acceptable and unacceptable to policymakers and public institutions with respect to scientific research. (c)
Safeco discovered five years ago that it could not find university graduated willing to take a COBOL job. The experienced COBOL programmers were too expensive. Safeco representatives said it would be impossible to convert Safecos huge mainframe computer system, which was developed in the 1960s, to a client-server system. So rather than rely on colleges and universities to train COBOL programmers, Safeco started its own training regimen (Internetweek,Flash). The company, known for its business suit dress code and chimes that tell employees when to take breaks, start their rookie COBOL programmers at salaries in the high $30,000-a-year rate, and then increases their pay when they pass the class (Internetweek,Flash). As I researched more I found that today Safeco is moving away from using COBOL and is now using the Trillium Software System. The Trillium Software System gives an organization the ability to establish a consistent, repeatable process for data cleansing, standardization and customer matching. Using Trillium, Safeco is able to slowly move away from its in-house text analysis system that is time consuming to maintain. Safeco is currently using the Trillium Software System to develop specific data standardization policies and business rules for data validation and customer matching. As a result, Safeco has been able to externalize its business rules, no longer depending on time-consuming COBOL programming (www.tgc.com/dsstar/00/0404/101467.html).
While Safeco is moving away from COBOL, Computer Horizons Corp. is not. Computer Horizons Corp. runs COBOL classes for companies throughout the country. Even though the demand for COBOL programmers has dropped off somewhat. Since the Y2K scare passed, demand for mainframe training is still high, said Dana Haag, director of sales for the Troy, Michigan companies education division (Internetweek,Flash).