On 21 Apr 2010 06:42:06 -0700, st...@trainersfriend.com (Steve Comstock) wrote:
>Well! Maybe COBOL is no longer being taught in the universities, >but it is still being taught by us and our competitors and our >colleagues. > >Maybe the Auditor-General people need to know that today's COBOL >can handle modern constructs and data formats. COBOL can process >Unicode and ASCII data, extract and create XML, work with DB2 using >LOBs (which means it can handle images and media files just >fine, thank you); COBOL can be used to create or access >DLLs, and on and on. Or maybe it won't matter to them. The decision makers use a wide variety of criteria to make their choices about what kind of system to buy, and probably don't know what all of that means. The perception is that mainframe CoBOL shops are dying out. New companies increasingly don't believe that in-house training is worthwhile (why train for your employee to go to a competitor?). The perception is that it's easier and cheaper to buy a package and adjust one's business practices to the package so that no modifications are needed. They do believe "interface" programming would still be needed - including the XML you mentioned above, and lots of data warehouse reports - farmed out to the users, not the programmers. But these can be using whatever tools the salesmen include with the package they buy. And if those prove to be more expensive in the long run - that's someone else's problem. Working in the short run works for politicians and bankers, even if the country and banks suffered for it. The resumes can show how much money they saved in the short run, if the accounting is creative. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
