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Paige Vinall (vinall -at- vnet -dot- ibm -dot- com) attempted to defend COBOL as a
worthwhile endeavor.
There may be 65 billion lines of COBOL out there, but that doesn't tell
the whole story. Do we want to learn what is old, though abundant, or
learn what is new and may become abundant?
Consider the Federal Aviation Administration's current problems with its
mainframes. They need replacing. It may be that just as soon as one
learns COBOL, much of the 65 billion lines of COBOL code are junked.
And let's suppose the COBOL lives on for a few more decades. Look what
it's used for: mainframe applications, the ugliest, dullest software--
as a category--of all programs. If one has a choice in what computer
languages to learn, shouldn't one select exciting, interesting, and
advanced languages? Aren't there a lot of COBOL programmers out there
already? Who wrote those 65 billion lines of code? How can there be
shortage of programmers in COBOL with 65 billion lines in use?
My suspicion is that many COBOL programmers have left for other languages.
COBOL? When I was an engineering major, writing FORTRAN code, we sneered
at the business majors writing their huge, slow programs in COBOL. And
when I adopted Pascal, I felt as if I had made an even greater leap beyond the
COBOL people. My code was leaner and faster, yet easy to read (unlike
FORTRAN). Maybe COBOL has changed, but it always seemed very clunky to me,
designed for ease of use rather than efficiency or elegance.
...just my $0.02
-Mike (the egotistical maniac and engineer wannabe)
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Michael Andrew Uhl Internet: uhl -at- vislab -dot- epa -dot- gov
Lead Technical Writer Compuserve: 72624,2155
SVC/NESC Phone: (919) 541-4283
Martin Marietta Technical Services, Inc. Fax: (919) 541-0056
Primary Support Contractor for the EPA ftp site: ftp.nesc.epa.gov
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
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