You should learn COBOL

Novice programmers (and it is quite possible that their colleagues with experience) must often ask themselves if they need to learn JAVA, or knowledge of JavaScript, Python or Ruby will be quite enough in the modern world. Given the demand for programmers in the current economy, many find decent work while still studying at universities, and why then, one asks, a representative of this profession to look into such a distant past as COBOL ?

According to a Gartner study from 2001 (in the case of this particular language, this can be called “recently”), 85% of the global business information was processed in COBOL, and by now the amount of code written by this programming language is starting to increase again. The company Micro FocusCOBOL, a developer and developer of modernization tools, says 70% of the global business is still using this language.

Although it is obvious that many of the applications originally written in COBOL will be rewritten, Micro Focus is confident that most of the original code will still remain in use, and the applications will be used for many years to come. They are safe, stable, and companies using them are not ready to simply refuse them. A Micro Focus program manager named Arunn Ramadoss says: "No other language is able to present business data as accurately as COBOL does."

And even in the days of a late retirement, engineers able to work with this language are becoming less and less. Someone stops working, others leave for positions related to management, not development.

Ramadoss believes that the world's largest companies and agencies will soon be very interested in young programmers who understand COBOL, as well as new technologies such as .NET or HTML5, believing that learning this programming language will do good to all students of programming faculties , and their graduates, since very soon there will be a sufficient number of interesting vacancies related to COBOL. Not to mention that this programming language is easy to learn.

In truth, such vacancies are already starting to appear, and most often marked "urgently needed."

“The days when you could be“ exclusively a Java programmer ”or“ only a C programmer ”are gone,” says Arunn: “Today you need to know several languages ​​and technologies, as well as how they can be integrated.”

Integration is perhaps the most important little thing for a person who decides to take on COBOL. The nature of the language, and the nature of the systems using it, is very tightly tied to business logic and processes. Therefore, the greatest test for the developer and programmer will not be learning the language itself, but understanding how it can be used in a modern corporate environment.

As an example, Ramadoss talks about the business process of transferring funds from one bank account to another - this procedure has not changed at all since its inception. But the way people interact with their bank accounts and transactions has undergone significant, if not dramatic, changes. Today, everyone wants to access the account using a PC or mobile phone.

In turn, for companies using the application written in COBOL, the most difficult moment will be the preservation and transfer of accumulated experience and knowledge about existing business processes to new developers. Those programmers who already know this language and understand how it integrates into modern technologies will stand out favorably from their colleagues, even though in principle this is not the most difficult technology to study (which means that many may relate to her somewhat frivolously).

So where do you start a person who is interested in learning this oldest programming language? The best start would be cobol.comwhere you can find a lot of information on how to approach this technology. As for literature, the book “The 21st Century COBOL Programmer” by authors Nancy Stern, Robert A. Stern and James P. Ley is considered the generally accepted reference.

And of course, right here, on your favorite resource, you can find interesting materials regarding this programming language.

via eWeek , RRW