COBOLworxhttps://cobolworx.com/2022-06-20T00:00:00-04:00Another gdb-cbl User2022-06-20T00:00:00-04:002022-06-20T00:00:00-04:00The COBOLworkerstag:cobolworx.com,2022-06-20:/another-gdb-cbl-user.htmlAn email that made us happy<p>A gentleman from Tennessee, US, dropped us a note. He points out what appeared to him to be a problem. But it’s on our Website. He’s happy.</p>
<p>So are we.</p>
Article, Mainframes - Excellent opportunities for Linux Admins2022-06-18T00:00:00-04:002022-06-18T00:00:00-04:00The LDAPGuystag:cobolworx.com,2022-06-18:/article-mainframes-excellent-opportunities-for-linux-admins.htmlPitch to Linux Admins but a nice endorsement of Mainframe and COBOL.<h2 id="from-a-european-practitionerteacher.-he-gets-the-value-of-the-underlying-mainframe-substrate-to-the-modern-world.-and-therefore-cobol.-has-a-nice-sound-bite-about-cobol-having-been-modernized.">From a European practitioner/teacher. He gets the value of the underlying mainframe substrate to the modern world. And therefore COBOL. Has a nice “sound bite” about COBOL having been <em>modernized</em>.</h2>
<p><a href="https://california18.com/mainframes-excellent-opportunities-for-linux-admins-but-managers-need-to-rethink/5224962022/">Mainframes: Escellent opportunities for linux admins, but managers need to rethink</a></p>
A couple of Recent COBOL Articles2022-06-01T00:00:00-04:002022-06-01T00:00:00-04:00Martytag:cobolworx.com,2022-06-01:/a-couple-of-recent-cobol-articles.htmlJim's announcement continues to stir up or show up in the ongoing chatter about COBOL in the 2020s.<p><a href="https://hackaday.com/2022/05/31/making-the-case-for-cobol/">Hackada</a> Making The Case for COBOL. References Jim’s announcement. Also points to an earlier article by James R. Martin (<a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/04/20/brush-up-your-cobol-why-is-a-60-year-old-language-suddenly-in-demand/">Brush up on your COBOL: Why is a 60 year old language suddenly in demand</a>.</p>
<p>And a word from those who want to make $GAZILLIONS rearchitecting the 100s of billions of lines of legacy COBOL and the data associated: <a href="https://thenewstack.io/going-from-cobol-to-cloud-native/">Going From COBOL to Cloud Native</a>. An absolute money-maker for the consultants. GnuCOBOL now and GnuCOBOL or <code>gcobol</code> at some point in the future can get the apps running nicely in the cloud for a total “conversion cost” measured in pennies per line of COBOL code. Assuming no show-stoppers, probably cheaper than the research phase prior to a new “Cloud Native” (deconstructed, rearchitected, etc.) design. Maybe <strong>MUCH</strong> cheaper.</p>
<p>Our recommendation?</p>
<p>Reach out and we’ll work with you on a proof of concept using GnuCOBOL. We can try converting one of the simpler batch jobs (backroom end of month reports? They don’t work “cloud native” anyway.) Using GnuCOBOL! Open Source. No license fees. No “freemium”. And see how it goes.</p>
Jim's gcobol Announcement2022-05-11T00:00:00-04:002022-05-11T00:00:00-04:00Martytag:cobolworx.com,2022-05-11:/jims-gcobol-announcement.html<p>Jim sent an <a href="https://lwn.net/ml/gcc/20220314163437.54ed696e0499d0875743a0f3@schemamania.org/#t">announcement</a> to the Gcc mailing last month. It got a couple of mentions in the Open Source Web-space. Not exactly silence but only a beginning.</p>
<p><code>gcobol</code> works. Stay tuned in. Work on getting <code>gcobol</code> to pass the basic CVVS-85 (NIST) COBOL test suite is going well. Jim …</p><p>Jim sent an <a href="https://lwn.net/ml/gcc/20220314163437.54ed696e0499d0875743a0f3@schemamania.org/#t">announcement</a> to the Gcc mailing last month. It got a couple of mentions in the Open Source Web-space. Not exactly silence but only a beginning.</p>
<p><code>gcobol</code> works. Stay tuned in. Work on getting <code>gcobol</code> to pass the basic CVVS-85 (NIST) COBOL test suite is going well. Jim, Bob, and the rest of us are proud of the work to date. <a href="https://www.symas.com">Symas</a> looks forward to late 2022 or 2023 when a more substantial announcement can be made.</p>
Great Day for GnuCOBOL2020-12-10T15:00:00-05:002020-12-10T15:00:00-05:00Jim Lowdentag:cobolworx.com,2020-12-10:/great-day-for-gnucobol.htmlGnuCOBOL 3.1.1 Was Released Yesterday!<p>December 8, 2020 is a date that will live in … the hearts of the Cobol free software community? It marked the arrival, at long last, of GnuCOBOL 3.1.1</p>
<p>It wasn’t easy.</p>
<p>Two years ago, the GnuCOBOL project was chugging along. Extensive work on the Report Writer feature was in its own Subversion branch with over 100 commits awaiting merge into the main branch. It wasn’t clear when everything could be merged and made available as a new release. It wasn’t even clear how.</p>
<p>Besides that, documentation was lagging. The homepage was in need of a facelift from its Geocities-era vibe. And the official release was 2.2, from 2017.</p>
<p>Over here at COBOLworx, which wasn’t COBOLworx yet, we were hard at work on other stuff. We realized we could give the project a boost. The project maintainer, Simon Sobisch, graciously handed us the keys, er, reins, or, well, a shovel, whatever. And we set to work</p>
<p>It was not all our doing. Not even close, just check the commit log. But we did clean out the stables, and throw on a fresh coat of paint. We hope you’ll find the new home page and online Programmer’s Guide easier on the eye, and more convenient to use.</p>
<p>Not content with nicer colors and cleaner links, we also thought, oh, why not do the impossible? Why not bring source-level debugging to the world of free Cobol compilers? Thus was born GnuCOBOL Debugging Extensions, affectionately known as cobcd. It works old-school and new-school: on the GNU gdb command line, and with Microsoft’s VSCode IDE, and now with restrictive licensing removed in, VSCodium. Because what 21st century programmer in one of the original Dinosaur languages doesn’t want a tool with Latin-sounding name? (You can use it in Emacs, too, if that’s how you roll.)</p>
<p>Unlike the Romans, neither we nor the project will rest on our laurels, not least because, to be honest, no one presented us with any laurels. But we are, really, really glad 3.1.1 saw the light of day in this Year of the Infinite Wednesday. And we, along with everyone else, no doubt, look forward more and better in 2021.</p>
Great COBOL Article2020-11-23T08:35:00-05:002020-11-23T08:35:00-05:00COBOLworx Teamtag:cobolworx.com,2020-11-23:/great-cobol-article.htmlAn honest and long look at COBOL's history and situation.<p>It’s not short but it really lays out what’s up with COBOL: <a href="https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/magazine/cobol-controls-your-money">read it here</a>: https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/magazine/cobol-controls-your-money</p>
<p>Like everyone else, the author is fatalistic about the future of COBOL. It’s natural, we suppose. There’s no reason for it. But there’s nothing stopping an inspired CIO to see the COBOL code inventory as a competitive advantage. “Blue Collar Programmers” are easier to train up. And they are likely to be happy work for less than their PhD Scientist competitors. Who knows?</p>
Continuing COBOL Bashing2020-11-10T15:00:00-05:002020-11-10T15:00:00-05:00COBOLworx Teamtag:cobolworx.com,2020-11-10:/continuing-cobol-bashing.htmlComparing COBOL to Sanskrit? Really?<p>A Political/Economic magazine came yesterday. I’m a Life Subscriber. Complaining about the state of the country, it used New Jersey’s plaint about its COBOL-related problems as an example of “The Rot.” It probably wasn’t COBOL related. It was probably related to much newer Web-related code. But so be it.</p>
<p>Everyone loves to blame COBOL. And almost all of them know nothing about it.</p>
<p>But the part that hurt was that the writer compare COBOL to Sanskrit. Now that takes a fair amount of ignorance.</p>
<p>COBOL is a dialect of the English language. It reads like English. Most of us, in the US, read English pretty well.</p>
<p>Sanscrit? Not so much. The number of people in our city of 30,000 who can read sanscrit is probably under 50 (10?).</p>
<p>There is a longer rant in there. Not for the moment. But, for maintainability and verifiability, it would be hard to do better than COBOL in countries where English language skills are common.</p>