Cobol Programming: Why its Suddenly in Demand

Introduction of COBOL

Half a century ago, every computer manufacturer created a unique programming language to instruct the computer. In 1959, Common Business-Oriented Language was designed to run in computers from different manufacturers; and the first successful test was in 1960. The first group of Cobol programmers created a multi-tasking solution for business, private industries, the government, and the military.

The third-generation programming language has been adopted by operating systems such as the Linux families and Windows.

An Overview

This high-level program language is best suited in developing business processes and applications such as billing, payroll, inventory management, accounting, and reservation systems.

Technically, the computer comprehends a single language of 1s and 0s; a binary stream called the machine code. The compliers aid the COBOL code into binary.

The Structure

Any Cibik source program is created with a set of statements that are syntactically correct, and they are structured hierarchically. It’s made up of Divisions, Sections, Paragraphs, Sentences, and Statements, in that order. According to Cobol developers, each of the parts constitutes one or more of the subsidiary element.

COBOL features

The popularity of this programming language can be credited to:

1. Business-oriented capabilities

The program can handle massive volumes of data, ranging from simple reports to complex transactions. To this end, Cobol development solutions are used in over 70% of business transactions globally.

2. Scalability & structure

Created with logical control features, it is simple to read, debug, and modify the program. Furthermore, it is portable, scalable, and dependable across many platforms.

3. Simplicity and standardization

The language offers a coding style that’s uncluttered, which is easy-to-learn and can be implemented in several computers.

Characteristics of COBOL

In most cases, Cobol application development is fitted into two categories:

On-line Transaction Processing

This exploits inter-transaction parallelism to allow numerous program requests to run simultaneously. Normally, such programs are performed in parallel by the TP monitor within which they are created and run. As such, there isn’t much performance improvement.

Batch

Larger programs handle a vast amount of record through similar processing. Many Cobol development services use this read-modify-write loop.

COBOL coding rules

Several rules apply to Cobol programming:

1. The initial six-character spots are assigned for sequence numerals

2. The 7th position is allocated to continuation character or asterisk

3. The 8th column is where actual program text begins

4. Fourth positions from 8 to 11 are identified as Area A, while Area B constitutes positions 12 to 72

Benefits of COBOL development

There are several benefits associated with cobol development solutions.

1. For starters, there are no required costs or license fee to purchase the software.

2. It offers an interface that allows content creation and editing before it’s uploaded to a website.

3. Pages are created using templates. Thus, any changes are made by updating the template file.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

• It is an excellent choice for business applications since it can easily handle large data volumes concurrently.
• It alludes to readability proponents, and it’s self-documenting.
• It’s easy to read.

Disadvantages

• Most times, it’s necessary for Cobol programming experts to be proficient in two programming languages.
• It takes more time to compile a COBOL program compared to machine-oriented program language.

Dominance

To date, COBOL has retained an expanse and active usage globally, and more firms continue to train their teams on the program. Billions of COBOL lines remain in use while many more are being rewritten for new features and maintenance purposes.

Past, present, & future

Though the program was created fifty years ago, it continues to thrive, taking control of most business platforms. With new features being written every day, COBOL will be around for a very long time.

At Chetu, we offer to develop, testing, and application deploys in COBOL, and we maintain and update the legacy COBOL software. Our experts can handle all versions of COBOL and adhere to all development standards.