The Future of the COBOL Programming Language

1
The Future of the COBOL Programming Language

• Karl Schenk
• University of Wisconsin-Platteville
• Department of Computer Science and Software
  Engineering

2
About Me

• Senior (Fifth Year)
• Majors
• Computer Science (CIS)
• Business Administration (CS)
• Related Jobs
• UW-Platteville OIT Lab Consultant
• John Deere Dubuque Works Part Time Student
  Information Technology

3
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

4
Introduction

• Ive coded in COBOL but never compiled
• 150-200 Billion Lines of COBOL
• Up to 2 billion Lines added each year
• Most COBOL is used at large corporations and by
  government

5
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• XML and COBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

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What is COBOL?

• Common Business Oriented Language
• Procedural Language
• Third Generation Language
• Compiled Language
• Most often used on Mainframes but is on PCs too.

7
What is COBOL?
8
What is COBOL?
9
What is COBOL?
10
What is COBOL?
11
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

12
COBOL Structure

• Hierarchical
• English-Like
• Add 1 to Counter Giving Counter
• 4 Divisions
• Identification, Environment, Data, and Procedure

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COBOL Structure

• Identification Division
• Program Name
• Other items like programmer and compile date
  should be comments
• Environment Division
• Describes the hardware the program is running on
• Briefly describes the data files

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COBOL Structure

• Data Division
• Defines all data
• Files and Working Storage
• Procedure Division
• Logic of the program
• Divided into Paragraphs

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COBOL Structure

• Code is restricted by columns
• 1-6 Line numbers
• 7 - Comment area
• 8-72 Margins A and B (code)
• 73-80 Identification and labels

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Cobol Structure Hello World
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. Program-Id.
Hello-World. ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. DATA
DIVISION. PROCEDURE DIVISION. 100-PARAGRAPH.
DISPLAY "Hello, world.". Stop Run.
17
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

18
COBOL History

• 1959 Department of Defense wanted a universal
  Business Application Language
• CODASYL was formed
• 11 Government and 15 Commercial attendees

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COBOL History

• COBOL-61
• ANSI/ISO Standards
• COBOL-65
• COBOL-74
• COBOL-85
• COBOL-2002
• Technical Reviews

20
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

21
COBOL-2002
22
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

23
Object Oriented COBOL

• A programming paradigm in which a program is
  viewed as a collection of discrete objects that
  are self-contained collections of data structures
  and routines of an object.
• Microsoft Computer Dictionary

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Object Oriented COBOL

• Requires 2 Programs
• Driver
• Trigger

Sample Program
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Object Oriented COBL Driver Program

• Registers the class
• Declares Object Reference data-items
• Creates an object from the class
• Accesses a method from the class
• Cleans up memory

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Object Oriented COBOLTrigger Program

• Inheritance is described in Identification Level
• Classes are listed
• Data in the classes is described
• Methods are declared
• Each has data and procedures

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Object Oriented COBOL

• Passing and returning variables done thorough
  COBOLs USING, GIVING, and RETURNING reserved
  words

Sample Program
28
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

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XML and COBOL

• XML
• Markup Language
• Used to make complicated output for web pages
• Developed by World Wide Web Consortium
• Technical Review for COBOL support of XML

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XML and COBOL
31
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

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Micro Foucus and Net Express

• Legacy System Development and Deployment
• Net Express
• Complete Development tool

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Micro Focus and Net Express

• Interfaces with Microsofts Visual Studio
• Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
• Allows for use of Web Forms and Win Forms
• Object Oriented and XML compatible
• Ability to use J, VB.net, etc. along with legacy
  code

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Micro Focus and Net Express
35
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

36
KOBOL

• theKompany.com
• Combines open source code into new, useful tools

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KOBOL

• IDE environment
• Allows for the creation of COBOL executables
• OO and XML compatible
• 59.95 per license!!!

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KOBOL
39
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

40
COBOL and Higher Education

• University of Wisconsin-Platteville
• Introductory course Computer Programming in
  COBOL
• 4 other classes
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Systems Design and Implementation
• CICS Application Programming
• Applications of Information Systems

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COBOL and Higher Education

• University of Wisconsin Madison
• No courses in COBOL
• University of Iowa
• Programming in COBOL (rotating class)
• Cal Poly
• Programming in COBOL

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COBOL and Higher Education

• Study of Business Managers
• CIS Majors should have a working knowledge of
  COBOL
• Because of the vast amount of code still being
  used
• Should have knowledge of both procedural and OO
  COBOL

43
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

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Employment Opportunities and COBOL

• Monster.com
• COBOL or Mainframe or Legacy System
• 6,000 Hits
• Limit to just Entry Level
• 62 Hits
• Large corporations often higher through
  internship programs so their jobs not listed

45
Topics

• Introduction
• What is COBOL?
• COBOL Structure
• COBOL History
• COBOL-2002
• Object Oriented COBOL
• XML and COBOL
• Micro Focus and Net Express
• KOBOL
• COBOL and higher Education
• Employment Opportunities and COBOL
• Conclusion

46
Conclusion

• COBOL will continue to decline in its use
• Still viable because it has adapted
• Biggest reason it has a future is amount still
  running on legacy systems

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References

• 1 Bitter, Gary G. (Ed). (1992). MacMillan
  Encyclopedia of Computers. New York MacMillan
  Publishing Company.
• 2 Khan, Mohammed B. (2003). COBOL. In Bidgoli,
  Hossein (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Information
  Systems Volume 1I (pp 113-126). New York
  Academic Press.
• 4 Kizour, Ronald Carr, Donald Halpern, Paul
  (2006). What Professionals think of the Future of
  COBOL? Electronic Version. Retrieved on October
  19, 2006 from http//www.cobolportal.com/developer
  /future.asp?bhcp1.
• 5 Narins, Brigham (Ed.). (2002) World of
  Computer Science. Detroti, MI Gale Group Thomson
  Learning.
• 6 Micro Focus International PLC. (2006) Micro
  Focus Net Express Data Sheet. Electronic
  Version. Retrived October 19, 2006, from
  http//www.microfocus.com

48
References

• 7 Reilly, Edwin D. (2003). Milestones in
  Computer Science and Information Technology.
  Westport, CT Greenwood Press.
• 8 theKompany.com (2006). KOBOL Multi-platform
  IDE and Compiler for COBOL Development. Retrieved
  October 17, 2006, from http//www.theKompany.com/p
  roducts/kobol
• 9 Stern, Nancy Stern, Robert A. Ley, James P
  (2003). COBOL for the 21st Century 10th Edition.
  New York John Wiley Sons, Inc.
• 10 Tauber, Barry. (2005). XML and the New COBOL
  Electronic Version. Retrieved October 19, 2006
  from http//www.webservicessummit.com/Trends/COBOL
  _XML.htm
• 11 University of Wisconsin-Platteville (2006).
  Computer Science and Software Engineering Program
  Information Electronic Version. Retrieved
  October 19, 2006 from http//www.uwplatt.edu/csse
• 12 Woodcock, JoAnne (Sr. Contributer). (1994).
  Computer Dictionary Second Edition. Redmond, WA
  Microsoft Press.