[lit-ideas] In Praise of COBOL
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 09:04:37 +0900
I love everything about the following, its celebration of a woman and
her monumental achievement, the calm, rational voice in which it
builds its case, the clean readable style, the warmth and low-key
humor. Anyway, from Znet via Slashdot.com.
---------------
As we celebrate the centenary of Grace Hopper's birth, it may seem
that her most famous creation — the Cobol language — is fit only for
antiquity. Cranky, verbose, antithetical to modern ideas, it's only
one step up from a slide rule in the estimation of the modern Java
slinger or C sharpist.
That is a gross injustice. Cobol suffers by association with its past,
a past of mythological giant monolithic mainframes and buttoned-down
control freaks. The microprocessor revolutionaries may have won our
hearts, but like victors everywhere they cemented their win by
rewriting history. The revolution born from Cobol wrenched technology
from the hands of the elite and gave it its first role in mainstream
business.
Another important truth is that Cobol was one of the very few
inventions of the early business computer industry that helped keep it
open. Because Cobol is strictly machine-independent — in ways that
more modern languages such as C are not, despite their lip service to
the contrary — it opened the way for software that could be moved to
faster hardware, even across vendors, to keep up with increased
demand.
Cobol is also largely self-documenting, another factor that helped
projects live on longer than the careers of their instigators.
Companies could start planning IT strategies that weren't tied to the
lifetime of one product, or the wishes of one hardware manufacturer.
And it works. There are uncounted millions of lines of high-quality
Cobol code running at the heart of finance, engineering and utilites
firms around the globe, often untouched across many generations of
hardware. They are not rewritten in newer, better languages because
for the tasks in hand there are no newer, better languages that
justify the cost and risk of conversion.
It is the mark of good engineering that products be reliable,
reusable, and work for as long as required. Cobol has proved itself
capable of producing software that more than lives up to this
standard.
Long after many of today's fads have disappeared into the bit bucket
of history, Cobol will be working hard behind the scenes. It's not the
solution to all problems. It never claimed to be. But it embodies many
ideals that deserve praise, not scorn, and will for years to come.
Grace's legacy is assured.
-------------
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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