I haven't touched COBOL since I supported CICS. I did use it for some fairly trivial CICS applications instead of Assembler, but after using less COBOL and more Assembler, I rarely started anything new in Cobol.
I remember generating shear horror in a manager one time, a long time ago. We had a pretty massive file layout change, many record types, many fields, the doc was pages of old layout, new layout. I had never used "move corresponding" and was somewhat bored, so I redefined the new file format using the same field names from the old record. Instead of performed paragraphs of moves for each various record, my pretty simple logic just had something like "If recort-type = "104" then move corresponding old-record-104 to new-record-104. Len Rugen University of Missouri Division of Information Technology Systems & Operations - Metrics & Automation Team ________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of Steve Thompson <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 8:56 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: COBOL in demand? Some years ago I was trying to get a system migrated to z/OS 1.4. I ran into a problem and my cohort told me I could write the diagnostic code in COBOL faster than I could do it in ALC. He was quite right. I knew enough about how the COBOL system behaved, that I could read the various outputs with COBOL and generate the JCL and Commands to fix it. And, I have processed SMF records with COBOL as well. It is sometimes a pain to do (especially with VS/COBOL). Now the particulars, or details, are a bit hazy now, since the 1.4 fiasco was about 2005. Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 6, 2016, at 9:16 PM, Clark Morris <[email protected]> wrote: > > [Default] On 6 Dec 2016 13:44:13 -0800, in bit.listserv.ibm-main > [email protected] (Steve Thompson) wrote: > >> Where I work we do a lot of COBOL. >> >> In fact, l use it as a tool to generate JOBs (JCL). I've even used it to >> help diagnose system problems. > > Could you elaborate on how you use COBOL for system problem diagnosis. > A retired COBOL programmer who used COBOL as the primary language in a > file and program usage system that included parsing SMF 30 records > wants to know. > > Clark Morris >> >> People who know COBOL can do amazing things with it. >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Dec 6, 2016, at 4:27 PM, Barkow, Eileen <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> This is from a LYNDA.COM COBOL course (using the free GNU COOBL on WINDOWS >>> under CYGWIN). >>> I thought that some people might be interested in the big bucks being >>> offered to COBOL programmers. >>> That is certainly news to me. And there was even a reference to the old >>> days when the code had to be punched into cards. >>> >>> " >>> COBOL is an endangered language. But it once ran 80% of the world's >>> business systems: thousands of mission-critical applications that still >>> exist today. Some companies want to upgrade and transition their COBOL >>> applications to more modern frameworks; others want to stick with COBOL's >>> relatively stable platform. In either case, hiring managers are willing to >>> pay a premium for candidates who know how to take on COBOL's challenges. >>> For this reason, programmers are learning COBOL again. >>> " >>> >>> ________________________________ >>> >>> This e-mail, including any attachments, may be confidential, privileged or >>> otherwise legally protected. It is intended only for the addressee. If you >>> received this e-mail in error or from someone who was not authorized to >>> send it to you, do not disseminate, copy or otherwise use this e-mail or >>> its attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and >>> delete the e-mail from your system. >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >>> send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
