Cobol, el lenguaje de programación que sigue vigente.

Cobol, the “cancelled” language that is still as relevant as the first day

The Cobol language never appears in the top positions of the main programming rankings. In the eyes of younger generations of developers, it is “outdated”. There are few academic offerings to learn it: less than 30% of universities worldwide include it in their curriculum.

But is this really the case? Does the fact that it is more than 60 years old make Cobol an inefficient language that is not adaptable to new technologies? Does Cobol have little time left, as has been unsuccessfully predicted several times?

Our experience leading Cobol modernization projects indicates that no. Cobol is still essential in the system structures of industries that process large volumes of data. And a language that overcomes its main differentials has not yet been created.

In this article we analyze the main reasons for the validity of Cobol and the opportunities for professional growth that arise from the training of young talent, for them and for the employing companies.

What is Cobol and what is it used for?

COBOL is an acronym for Common Business Oriented Language.

As its name suggests, it is a business and administration oriented programming language.

It was born in 1959 in the United States, from the Conference on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL), with Inspiration from the Flow-Matic compiler by Grace Hopper.

In the 1950s, system development required a high level of knowledge and specialization. Low-level languages and assembly language were used, which required a lot of training and meticulous work.

The Cobol creation project aimed to resolve this pressing need in the sector: standardize the languages used by computer equipment and “popularize” programming.

And it did so effectively. The integration of the Cobol language allows applications to be deployed on platforms such as .NET, Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and cloud environments, without having to modify a single line of code.

Cobol popularized programming and helped the industry expand.

These distinctive features made Cobol have an immediate impact on business and administrative computing and it is, to this day, a very popular programming language in the business world.

It is used in a wide range of applications, from database management, transaction processing and planning (ERP), for three distinctive characteristics: robustness, reliability and portability of its business logic.

These attributes are also what made it the backbone of the financial system, as an ideal language for developing applications that require high performance and low maintenance.

What made this language so special?

The fact that programs written in Cobol can run on a wide range of platforms is an important differentiator. In addition, it is the language of choice for writing critical applications and programs in organizations, for the trust, solidity and security it provides.

Leonardo Zrycki, IBM Champion 2023 zSystem and Cobol trainer at IT Patagonia, adds another differential: its Ease of training and understanding of programs“Being an 'English-like' language, it is easily understandable. In addition, it is compilable, so its executables have a high processing speed,” he explains.

This quality was defined as an objective from the birth of Cobol: to create a language that would allow people without computer knowledge to communicate more effectively with computers, to meet the growing need for open technology.

What made Cobol the backbone of the financial system? Precisely the fact that it was a easy to understand and comprehend program, and its solidity and security, factors that made key industries - such as the financial industry - adopt and prefer it.

Its main features include:

“English like”, easy to understand and write in a syntax similar to that of the English language
Simple to document
Special for processing large volumes of data, hundreds of thousands of records
Being a compiled language, it has high processing speed
Programming and structured data types
Connection to files of all types and relational databases
Supports embedded SQL

The fact that no other language has proposed the same differences in the 60 years since its creation and the high cost of migration have strengthened Cobol's validity.

Why is Cobol still used?

Over the years of Cobol's existence, new programming languages have emerged, winning the hearts of new generations of developers.

However, Cobol remains active, defying the shortage of professionals, which currently They are on average over 55 years old in the world.

Its validity is justified by the fact that it is the basis of a large number of systems still in use in the main industries of the world. Due to the high cost and the risk of rewriting or migrating these systems to more modern languages, Organizations continue to bet on Cobol.

According to Zrycki, its relevance is explained by the perfect marriage between its evolution and that of IBM systems -both ISeries and zSeries-, which have optimized their efficiency and allow high transactionality.

This synchronized transformation made the world's largest companies, which support their core systems on Mainframes, continue to use it, because Cobol has proven over the years be very stable in everything that has to do with business logic.

Besides, It has been modernized as technology evolves and users demand it.The language has been transformed over time, adding structured programming, the ability to nest programs, and support for recursion. And since 2002, Cobol has supported object-oriented programming.

As Bill Gates predicted, 60 years after its birth, Cobol remains active and has no plans to retire.

What can be programmed in “dinosaur” language?

Cobol programming -particularly in IBM zSystem Mainframes-, solves business logic, both in online and batch processes, and is used in the development of a wide range of applications:

FinancialIt is the most widely used language in the financial sector, to develop payment processing systems, investment management and regulatory compliance.
ManagementIt is used to develop systems for inventory management, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM).
From governmentIt is used to develop systems for tax administration, benefits management and national security.

Cobol in the business world

As we anticipated, in the development of modern applications, Cobol is not a very popular programming language. But It is still widely used to maintain and modernize existing ones..

According to sector statistics, he 92% of the world's leading financial institutions use it, and Cobol is used for 95% of operations carried out at ATMs.

This massiveness and the great penetration in the most important industries partly explains the validity of Cobol that we mentioned in the title.

Furthermore, its relevance is due to the constant modernization of this language. For example, in the latest versions of Cobol for zSystem, interoperability between this language and Java was improved and allows you to call from Cobol to Java and vice versa.

Las principales industrias del mundo utilizan Cobol. — Although not a very popular programming language, Cobol is still widely used to maintain and modernize existing ones.

Career prospects for developers

The digital transformation and the emergence of new programming languages and environments caused a decline in the supply of Cobol language developers.

As a result, The global market is struggling with a shortage of senior profilesFor example, in Argentina it is estimated that there are more than 15 thousand IT jobs are unfilled, a figure that grows year after year.

Paradoxically, technology courses have low enrollment and, as a result, unemployment in this field increases. In addition, more than 70% of technology courses exclude Cobol from their curriculum.

This context opens a Great opportunity for professional development in the field of Cobol programming. And the almost complete certainty of having a secure job if you are a senior or semi-senior developer.

Organizations need to fill the positions left by workers who reach professional retirement., quickly and without losing competitiveness.

On the other side of the fence, there is a large amount of young talent eager to enter the IT world, but they have a hard time finding someone to guide and train them.

With the intention of matching the needs of both parties, at IT Patagonia we have been carrying out a comprehensive training and mentoring program in Cobol for some years, in which experts They train and accompany new talents in the role of mentors.

Leonardo Zrycki is one of those mentors. In the first person, he describes his activity as “Hard, but fun”.

“It is really exciting to be part of a project that not only federalizes and democratizes the knowledge of many generations of young professionals by providing them with job opportunities in technology, but also solves one of the most frequent demands of our clients,” says the IBM Champion 2023 zSystem.

“I firmly believe that mentoring teams of young professionals is The best tool that companies and organizations have to refresh their human resources pyramid and obtain tangible results in a short time,” he summarizes.

Learn about the ICBC-IT Patagonia success story.

Conclusions

Cobol is the most widely used programming language in applications that require high performance and low maintenance, due to the reliability, robustness and security it provides.

With 60 years of existence, no other language has emerged to replace it. That is why the world's largest companies that support their core systems on Mainframes continue to use it.

Digital transformation and the emergence of new programming languages and environments have led to a shortage of senior and semi-senior profiles. This context opens up a great opportunity for professional development in the field of Cobol programming.

Cobol Studio from IT Patagonia provides expert resources in analysis, design, development, quality control and implementation of IT solutions in Cobol language, on various platforms.