OpenBSD Journal

COBOL and OpenBSD

Contributed by jose on from the *hrm* dept.

Jesse Taylor writes:
"Does anybody have any clues on how to get a recent version or modern version of a "COBOL" compiler running on OpenBSD? I'm currently a MIS Major at UNLV, and I'm taking this language as part of my major.(Trust me, I didn't want too!) Any help would be great. Thanks!

- Jesse Taylor
jesse@zekimedia.com"

I didn't think anyone still taught COBOL seriously. I looked and found Tiny-COBOL , which is evidently COBOL85 compliant, and some resources at this IBM Developerworks piece on COBOL and the future ... wierd.

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By Gilbert Fernandes () gilbertf@posse-press.com on mailto:gilbertf@posse-press.com

    its configure (tinycobol) doesn't finds the ncurses library and you'll have to edit its configure and replace the "lncurses" by "lcurses" if you want the configure to finish ;)
    someone should tell them, but perhaps not. it's cobol after all, and this is dangerous for the brain.

  2. By Ian MCWilliam () i.mcwilliam@uws.edu.au on mailto:i.mcwilliam@uws.edu.au

    >I didn't think anyone still taught COBOL seriously.

    Well, COBOL lives on in Australia. It a core subject for many degrees on offer at University Of Western Sydney, and if I remember correctly is required By the ACS (australian Computer Society), the people who accredit the School of Computing && IT's degrees. Why it's not offered as an elective is beyond me.

    Anyways I've just out of interest, tried unsuccessfully to run DEC Cobol from Tru64 on the Alpha under binary emulation. Haven't spent a great deal of time trying to debug it. So at this point in time it's not an option. And no, I don't have too much time on my hands!

    Comments

    1. By Don Stewart () dons at cse.unsw.edu.au on mailto:dons at cse.unsw.edu.au

      No, it's not required by the ACS, at least not in the last 5 years. At UNSW I've never seen COBOL. Which might be a good thing...

  3. By steve () on

    We even learn COBOL 85 on an AS/400 running OS/400

  4. By RandomPacket () jason@ironlizard.org on http://www.ironlizard.org

    What's worse is that where I work we still have in-production COBOL code on a VAX/VMS machine. COBOL is supposedly still the 2nd most widely-used langauge today after REXX.

    Comments

    1. By Roo () on

      I keep hearing that, but I don't see stats to back it up...

      Personally I suspect C overtook COBOL a *long* time ago. Before you protest... Think of all those little embedded systems coded in C - many of them low-volume items too. :)

      Cheers,
      Roo

    2. By SgtUnix () - on -

      Yes, it might be that COBOL is still the second most widely used programming language in the world. But Rexx as #1? I'm having difficulties believing that. I'd think C and C++ would share the first place.

  5. By Jonathan the Nerd () on

    "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."

    -- E. W. Dijkstra

    (I don't remember where I found this quote, so I can't verify it.)

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward () on

      E.W.Dijkstra "Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective" Springer-Verlag 1982

Latest Articles

Credits

Copyright © - Daniel Hartmeier. All rights reserved. Articles and comments are copyright their respective authors, submission implies license to publish on this web site. Contents of the archive prior to as well as images and HTML templates were copied from the fabulous original deadly.org with Jose's and Jim's kind permission. This journal runs as CGI with httpd(8) on OpenBSD, the source code is BSD licensed. undeadly \Un*dead"ly\, a. Not subject to death; immortal. [Obs.]