COBOL in 100 seconds

So funny that you used austrian airline as image 😂

You make it seem like it's a fun language. It's not.

I feel like "the big iron" was a callback to the movie Hackers 😂

Developed over 100 years ago in 1959... So a math wizard and a COBOL expert all in one package. Amazing.

As a programmer who enjoy web development and did not have exposure to COBOL but offered one job (with training), can i get some advices ? Im really struggling btw enjoying my work and job security 😢

COBOL devs 🤝 SQL devs
LIBERAL USE OF CAPS LOCK IN THEIR CODE

As a mainframe programmer I think that the only programming language worse than COBOL was (is?) NATURAL. The acronym COBOL stands for COmmon Business Oriented Language. It was developed to allow a program written for one manufacturers machine to run on another company's machine. Unfortunately, most companies started to 'personalize' the language for special situations (e,g, - internal sort) which immediately invalidated the entire concept of inter-operability without major code modifications.

The use of reserved words, while it may have made the development of the language itself easier, was a constant source of frustration. Although no programmer, I'm sure, ever coded such an instruction the statement "IF AND NOT EQUAL THEN THEN GOTO EQUALS AND" (all COBOL reserved words) would be correctly resolved in PL/I. The wordiness of the language only served to make reading the code difficult to follow. IBM's PL/I was far superior and easier to use. PL/I also allowed for easy manipulation of bit-strings and the assignment of storage at execution time.

Talking to an IBM rep back in the late 80's he told me that, while PL/I had a few hundred outstanding issues at any time, COBOL always had several thousand.

1979 at a programming school my most hated language.

The year is 2059..!!! :P

i am giving interview for mastercard and i m here to boast about cobol if needed

I especially like then the code didn't even run

Over 100 years ago, in 1959.
And stop playing.

I got a job in a bank... took 2 weeks to learn the important parts... and indeed the code is more readable than everything else ive seen. Although, i think it is because people simply tend to try keeping everything as simple as possible when everything is so verbose

Oh god I died for a second

"Over 100 years ago in 1959."

Ha, nice "I can't math" joke!

Imagine working on the code behind credit card transactions. One screw up could destroy society lol

After a few minutes of considering learning COBOL so I could be that one guy that knows it in 50 years and gets paid ludicrous amounts of money to do it. I've changed my mind, the brainrot is not worth it.

What's this background song's name?

Garbage 💩

This unabashed praise for COBOL from guy who habitually bashes Java ... I need to learn COBOL

Uh, 1959 is not "one hundred years ago" - yet.

"it was developed over 100 years ago, in 1959" dang. didn't know we're over 2059 now. "your code needs to be responsive on mobile devices" - wait what?

I just learned our coutry pensions system runs on COBOL and that there's no one who maintains it.

put the video in x2 for learning COBOL in 50 seconds

1959 is 100 years go. My parents are both 62. I know they are old but come on.

MISSING: the relation of COBOL vs RPG !!! as it has the same lower level structure!!

It is ordained that every COBOL program shall find its genesis upon paper, written solely by pencil. A wondrous alchemy ensues as the scribes of destiny, the chosen women, delicately transcribe the sacred incantations onto punch cards, lest they awaken the wrath of the divine pantheon.

Spent my early career (beginning 1970) writing COBOL. When I say "writing" - I mean that literally. On those white and green coding sheets that were then keypunched into "IBM" cards.
(Those first 6 columns with the card numbers came in real handy when you accidentally dropped a big deck of those cards. Then you ran them thru the old card sorter).
One of my early projects was two versions of an accounts payable system. The "paired down" version ran in 40k (that's 40,000 bytes), while the "full-blown" version, for the companies with the deep pockets was a whopping 60k!😅

I don’t see 3270 screen

IS IT REALLY CALLED 'BIG IRON' ?? whauow))) i can have 750 day as consultant in any other area, true that i like cobol somehow???

"It was built over 100 years ago in 1959." 😄

Back around the 70's, I think, for the company for which I worked, I purchased some COBOL business software (purchasing, sales, payroll, etc) but managed to arrange access to the source code to enable me to write job costing software for the company -which made bespoke springs and pressings. I recall my first program compiled with hundreds of errors 'cos I forgot to put full stops at the end of program lines! And the verbosity of variables ! Later I think I solved the Y2K problem by adding 50 to the year portion of the date then testing whether it overflowed its two digits. I'm 83 now, but still recall the thrill of replacing that legacy system that used hand-written entries on Job cards with fully accessible and reportable screen based programs that used operators pay rates extracted from the payroll data. Pity I worked for a miser!

I coded a lot on Tandem paralell computers. Its not that verbose and there are things I would have liked them to use c. but the business huy claimed he wouldnt be able to read it which would have saved lot of my time.

btw, no line numbers, lots of abreviations etc.

You really haven't coded in COBOL, have you? When it comes to batch processing it's extremely powerful, particularly with respect to throughput (as you refer to in the video). With a few statements it can set up parallel processes for reading, processing and writing that execute at the same time for example. There are plenty of advanced features within it. It's a 3GL just like any other and very capable for certain types of application. Sure it has its shortcomings but in the right hands it can be a powerful tool.

When I graduated school in '99, my first job was working on an AS400 writing COBOL. When I applied for the job, it became apparent that all I had to be able to do was spell COBOL and I got the job (because of the whole Y2K thing). I really liked the AS400, but COBOL was like watching grass grow. I'm sure I could double my current salary if I went somewhere that needed COBOL programmers, but I also like my sanity.

COBOL. The fifth language I used in my career, after Assembler, RPG, Fortran and PL/1. What a clunker it was.

COBOL made me rich fixing all the Y2K bugs for companies that left their migration too late. It’s one of those languages where people plan to not have the code around for long so don’t put loads of effort in, then 30 or 40 years later you find the company is still running the same code

I'm guessing those companies that still keep this zombie language alive will need to start recruiting by seance in the next few years.

If you want to fail, just call ILBOABNO

in the end he tries to run the code, not the binary. what a lame.

Ah, memories

Thank you C!! ;)

aren't you lucky you were NOT a CS graduate in 1959?!

I damned near think I learned COBOL now..

The modern cobol is java :-)))