Cobol - Yuk!

lord_dude · Feb 28th, 2001, 11:09 AM

Can anyone that knows what their taking about settle an argument for me please.

I am being forced to learn cobol against my will by my lecurers who say that cobol is the best language in the world. I think it is the worst. If anyone could replyfor me so that i can show my aginglecturers how rubbish it is now, i would appriciate it.

**Gaffer** · Feb 28th, 2001, 11:12 AM

As far as employment goes, forget it. Look up Jobserve.co.uk for evidence...

**alex_read** · Feb 28th, 2001, 11:32 AM

DOS is the greatest language

VB isn't the best either. Cobol is old hat now, hardly many peple employ developers in this any more.

How long have you been there?
I had a friend do 2 years at college & they started with Pascal & a few other low-end languages and then progressed onto C and java to give the students a taster of each language for them to decide what they wanted to move into for future courses.

Could this be what your lecturers are doing ?

**HarryW** · Feb 28th, 2001, 11:32 AM

COBOL was around in the 1950s, and if that doesn't tell you it's outdated then nothing will. It seems like a horrendous waste of time to me to be learning COBOL, if you were to write any new software I shudder at the thought of writing anything else in COBOL. The only reason anyone uses COBOL nowadays is to maintain old code, and (occasionally) for batch processing, with code thats full of gotos using spaghetti style coding techniques that NOONE should be tought to program with!

**Active** · Feb 28th, 2001, 11:38 AM

If You are going to work for a Museum...Do try it.

**HarryW** · Feb 28th, 2001, 11:46 AM

Why don't you get them to teach you Befunge, that's probably more useful.

**smh** · Feb 28th, 2001, 12:41 PM

OK, I guess I am the only one with a different point of view. I learned COBOL while I was in school, and it really helped me with the thought processes on loops. I hadn't had any programming experience except for in school before I learned this, so it was a good learning experience for me. If I already had a background in programming, it would have been a waste of my time.

It also gives you another language that you can put on your resume to seem more well rounded.

**HarryW** · Feb 28th, 2001, 01:01 PM

If COBOL was the only language in the world then I might agree that it's a good thing to learn it, but to learn programming you don't need to learn COBOL. A far better language to learn when you start programming is Pascal (because it's very strict and still used in Delphi in the form of Object Pascal) or maybe VB, or C/C++. Or Java, that seems popular with universities now.

**smh** · Feb 28th, 2001, 01:07 PM

I have never used (or seen) Pascal. It wasn't offered at my school. We did have to take 2 mainframe languages and 2 others. I took RPG and COBOL as my mainframe languages and C/C++ and Visual Basic as my other two. I did take a Java class also, even though it was not required at the time. (It is now that I am done.)

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 01:19 PM

I think he was looking for reasons to say its not the best language here. Just the silly fact that the columns you start you code in tells you it suck along with i havent seen anyone get hired to program in cobol for 2 years and the horibly limiting strict structure you have to use to code...Or how about the fact that a ten line program in most language usually ends up longer than it would in assembly sometimes. I can probably find some really good reasons if i looked into it more but if it looks like SH** and it smells like SH** its usually SH** so why waste time i could use working on a real language.

**smh** · Feb 28th, 2001, 01:23 PM

OK...Here's a reason why to hate it. THE DAMN PERIODS! I would always have problems because a period was missing or in the wrong place.

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 01:24 PM

forgot about that one

**smh** · Feb 28th, 2001, 01:39 PM

I'm still having nightmares...

He He

**ShIzO** · Feb 28th, 2001, 01:42 PM

i'm a college graduate and my school made us to take 5 COBOL classes including some stupid **** mainframe crap. also we used SQL with COBOL i mean i was so pissed at them, wasting my money for this lanaguage.
i think you guys are right - there is no new development in COBOL - only maintaining existing applications (and we all know that it sux)

funny part is that our school offers as i said 5 cobol classes, 3 C++ classes, 1 VB class. and even funier part is that there were no Senior Project done in COBOL in like past 10 years, all of them are VB, ASP, C++, etc.
and only about 5% of graduates goes and work with COBOL.... ?!? can't they just figure what the **** is going on ?!??!

i'm sorry but while i was reading this post i got very pissed off.

btw: COBOL was written by a woman (it figures all those periods and essay style programming)

hate cobol!!!

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 01:42 PM

cobol give me nitemares too. I thought assambler was alot easier to understand.

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 02:11 PM

Makes sense...all the cobol programmers I know are women. I always thought it was a very unlogical style of programming myself

**Pix** · Feb 28th, 2001, 02:20 PM

I hate COBOL but I hate sexist t**** more

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 02:24 PM

whos being sexist?

Feb 28th, 2001, 02:41 PM

thats true about all cobol programmers being women, i have 2 cobol lecturers and they r both women, and i think they r not going 2 b too happy with me tomorrow when i show them this thread to prove my point that i have been saying too them.

**parksie** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:12 PM

Pix, I don't think he's being sexist...women think about things a lot differently to men. For example, modular courses actually put men at a disadvantages, because their style is to cram, then have a burst of knowledge. Women prefer to keep at a steady pace, with modules & coursework, stuff like that.

**Pix** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:13 PM

Please don't mention coursework!!!!

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:14 PM

Just from my cobol class, a vast majority of the women had an easier time with it. Its just a fact based on experience. It was never meant to be sexist. Some of the best java and vb programmers i know are women. But to acknowledge the fact that women and men think diferently isnt sexist, its the truth. If i am a sexist for acknowledging fact then fine but i wont go along with "political corectness" to ignore reallity.

I know i can rant sometime

**Pix** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:18 PM

You're right. I got the wrong end of the stick, sorry !

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:20 PM

Sorry, just an issue that has popped up to annoy today and kinda vented to here. Anybody that remembers me here know i tend to get on my soapbox about things at times

**Pix** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:22 PM

I feel bad now ! I had no right to rant like that !

**parksie** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:22 PM

Nobody mention religion!

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:26 PM

why do you think i have been avoiding chat the last few months

Seems they finally dropped the subject.

Think we came up with enough reason why cobol sucks yet

**smh** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:29 PM

My COBOL teacher was a guy.

Feb 28th, 2001, 03:33 PM

probably not. I dont think it would matter if i got all 6billion people on the planet to sign a piece of paper to say they think cobol sucks, that my lecurers would still disaggree, but its worth a try anyway, even if i do get kicked out of college

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:34 PM

Well originally my teacher was a guy but he never did any real programming in it, he was just filling in until our real teacher got started, a woman. He knew cobol, but never used it professionally. The teacher that left was female too.

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:35 PM

not worth getting kicked out over. You may look into transfering though. There has got to be a better place that has already learned to foget cobol.

Feb 28th, 2001, 03:42 PM

i wish i had transfered but its too late now. If i left and went somewhere else, i would have to start from scratch, but i am 3 quarters of the way through this course now so its not worth it. I considered leaving last year because of the sylabus but the lecturers said that the sylabus is much better and modern next year because you do a modern language(cobol) and i took their word for it because i knew very little about programming at the time. Little did i know about the hell that was awaiting me.

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:45 PM

cobol is a modern language. you got suckered

Feb 28th, 2001, 03:53 PM

i know i did but at least i learnt my lesson, NEVER EVER trust ANYONE

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 03:55 PM

exactly

**HarryW** · Feb 28th, 2001, 04:46 PM

You didn't get suckered mate, they just plain lied to you.

Feb 28th, 2001, 08:42 PM

I'd just do it and cop it on the chin

COBOL is still around on plenty of sites and in the future anyone willing to take on COBOL work will be an asset and will be able to charge accordingly. Think about the might dollar/pound.... that'll ease the pain.

**jdavison** · Feb 28th, 2001, 09:54 PM

It may still be around but barely. Almost all the major companies that ever used it have been working it out of there systems. As far as site i highly doubt anyone uses cobol for that. The money is easing away as the need decreases and soon it will be nothing but a previous nightmare.

Feb 28th, 2001, 10:48 PM

I beg to differ, there are plenty of banks, insurance companies and lots of funny little IT sites everywhere, like hospitals and canneries who rely on COBOL. There will be COBOL legacy stuff around for many years.

As far as site i highly doubt anyone uses cobol for that.

By site I meant data processing but as you raised the point, Microsoft saw fit to include it in their .NET runtime library so they see a future in it, I defer to their market experience on that matter.

Early in the thread Gaffer suggested looking at jobserve.co.uk for COBOL opportunities, I just did, there are currently 1092, sounds good to me.....

**jdavison** · Mar 1st, 2001, 09:16 AM

Guess its just something we disagree on which there is nothing wrong with. From the sound of it you are not from the states so the situation may be different there. Working for a few different consulting companies, most of which were originally based off of cobol and the mainframe enviroment, they have all left that area due to lack of work. All the banks in hospitals in my area of the world have move away from the mainframe/cobol enviroment to the pc network. All apps are written in vb and java and some c++. Maybe there is a market for it somewhere but i sure havent seen it at all wether its been advertised or not. I have also heard this from several head hunters too.

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