The Future of
the COBOL
Programming
Language
Karl Schenk
University of Wisconsin-Platteville
Department of Computer Science and Software
Engineering
About Me
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Senior (Fifth Year)
Majors:
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Computer Science (CIS)
Business Administration (CS)
Related Jobs
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UW-Platteville OIT – Lab Consultant
John Deere Dubuque Works – Part Time
Student Information Technology
Topics
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Introduction
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What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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Introduction
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“I’ve coded in COBOL but never
compiled”
150-200 Billion Lines of COBOL
Up to 2 billion Lines added each
year
Most COBOL is used at large
corporations and by government
Topics

Introduction
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What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
XML and COBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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What is COBOL?
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Common Business Oriented
Language
Procedural Language
Third Generation Language
Compiled Language
Most often used on Mainframes
but is on PC’s too.
What is COBOL?
What is COBOL?
What is COBOL?
What is COBOL?
Topics
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Introduction
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What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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COBOL Structure
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Hierarchical
English-Like
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Add 1 to Counter Giving Counter
4 Divisions
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Identification, Environment, Data,
and Procedure
COBOL Structure
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Identification Division
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Program Name
Other items like programmer and
compile date should be comments
Environment Division
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Describes the hardware the program
is running on
Briefly describes the data files
COBOL Structure
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Data Division
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Defines all data
Files and Working Storage
Procedure Division
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Logic of the program
Divided into Paragraphs
COBOL Structure
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Code is restricted by columns
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1-6
7
8-72
73-80
–
–
–
Line numbers
Comment area
Margins A and B (code)
Identification and labels
Cobol Structure
“Hello World”
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
Program-Id. Hello-World.
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
DATA DIVISION.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
100-PARAGRAPH.
DISPLAY "Hello, world.".
Stop Run.
Topics
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Introduction
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What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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COBOL History
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1959 Department of Defense
wanted a universal Business
Application Language
CODASYL was formed
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11 Government and 15 Commercial
attendees
COBOL History
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COBOL-61
ANSI/ISO Standards
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COBOL-65
COBOL-74
COBOL-85
COBOL-2002
Technical Reviews
Topics
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Introduction
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What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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COBOL-2002
Topic
Brief Description
Margins A & B
Restrictions on data placed in these margins will no
longer be requirements, only recommendations
Identification Division.
Only paragraph permitted in this division will be the
Identification Division.
Name Lengths
Increased from 30 to 60 characters
Comments
In-line comments will be allowed after a *> symbol
Arithmetic Operators
Spaces will not be required around operators
Sort
The SORT keyword can now be used on both tables
and files
Deletion of Files
A DELETE statement will allow deletion of an entire
file with only one instruction.
Topics
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Introduction
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What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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Object Oriented COBOL
“A programming paradigm in which
a program is viewed as a
collection of discrete objects
that are self-contained
collections of data structures
and routines of an object.”
Microsoft Computer Dictionary
Object Oriented COBOL
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Requires 2 Programs
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Driver
Trigger
Object Oriented COBL
Driver Program
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Registers the class
Declares Object Reference dataitems
Creates an object from the class
Accesses a method from the class
Cleans up memory
Object Oriented COBOL
Trigger Program
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Inheritance is described in
Identification Level
Classes are listed
Data in the classes is described
Methods are declared
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Each has data and procedures
Object Oriented COBOL
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Passing and returning variables
done thorough COBOL’s USING,
GIVING, and RETURNING reserved
words
Topics
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Introduction
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What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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XML and COBOL
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XML
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Markup Language
Used to make complicated output for
web pages
Developed by World Wide Web
Consortium
Technical Review for COBOL
support of XML
XML and COBOL
Topic
Brief Description
Select
Statement
Allows for the data type and access mode to be XML;
Also allows type of XML (DTD or Schema) to be
specified, as well as version.
Data Division
IDENTIFIED and ATTRIBUTE keywords are added to
help and parse XML tags; Vendors will most often
supply utilities to easily convert most XML into COBOL
standard XML
Procedure
Division
Changes to the Read, Write, Open, Close, Delete,
Rewrite, and Start commands are made to allow XML
to be accessed and modified.
Topics
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Introduction
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What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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Micro Foucus and
Net Express
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Legacy System Development and
Deployment
Net Express
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Complete Development tool
Micro Focus and
Net Express
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Interfaces with Microsoft’s Visual
Studio
Integrated Development Environment
(IDE)
Allows for use of Web Forms and Win
Forms
Object Oriented and XML compatible
Ability to use J#, VB.net, etc.
along with legacy code
Micro Focus and
Net Express
Topics
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Introduction
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What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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KOBOL
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theKompany.com
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Combines open source code into new,
useful tools
KOBOL
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IDE environment
Allows for the creation of COBOL
executables
OO and XML compatible
$59.95 per license!!!
KOBOL
Topics

Introduction

What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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COBOL and Higher Education
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University of Wisconsin-Platteville
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Introductory course: Computer Programming
in COBOL
4 other classes
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Systems Analysis and Design
Systems Design and Implementation
CICS Application Programming
Applications of Information Systems
COBOL and Higher Education
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University of Wisconsin Madison
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University of Iowa
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No courses in COBOL
Programming in COBOL (rotating
class)
Cal Poly
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Programming in COBOL
COBOL and Higher Education
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Study of Business Managers
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CIS Majors should have a working
knowledge of COBOL
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Because of the vast amount of code
still being used
Should have knowledge of both
procedural and OO COBOL
Topics

Introduction

What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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Employment Opportunities
and COBOL
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Monster.com
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COBOL or Mainframe or Legacy System
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Limit to just Entry Level
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6,000 Hits
62 Hits
Large corporations often higher
through internship programs so
their jobs not listed
Topics

Introduction

What is COBOL?
COBOL Structure
COBOL History
COBOL-2002
Object Oriented COBOL
XML and COBOL
Micro Focus and Net Express
KOBOL
COBOL and higher Education
Employment Opportunities and COBOL
Conclusion
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Conclusion
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COBOL will continue to decline
in its use
Still viable because it has
adapted
Biggest reason it has a future
is amount still running on
legacy systems
References
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[1] Bitter, Gary G. (Ed). (1992). MacMillan
Encyclopedia of Computers. New York: MacMillan
Publishing Company.
[2] Khan, Mohammed B. (2003). COBOL. In Bidgoli,
Hossein (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Information Systems
Volume 1I (pp 113-126). New York: Academic Press.
[4] Kizour, Ronald; Carr, Donald; & Halpern, Paul
(2006). What Professionals think of the Future of
COBOL? [Electronic Version]. Retrieved on October 19,
2006 from
http://www.cobolportal.com/developer/future.asp?bhcp=1.
[5] Narins, Brigham (Ed.). (2002) World of Computer
Science. Detroti, MI: Gale Group Thomson Learning.
[6] Micro Focus International PLC. (2006) Micro Focus
Net Express Data Sheet. [Electronic Version]. Retrived
October 19, 2006, from http://www.microfocus.com
References
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[7] Reilly, Edwin D. (2003). Milestones in Computer Science
and Information Technology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
[8] theKompany.com (2006). KOBOL Multi-platform IDE and
Compiler for COBOL Development. Retrieved October 17, 2006,
from http://www.theKompany.com/products/kobol
[9] Stern, Nancy; Stern, Robert A. & Ley, James P (2003).
COBOL for the 21st Century 10th Edition. New York: John Wiley
& Sons, Inc.
[10] Tauber, Barry. (2005). XML and the New COBOL [Electronic
Version]. Retrieved October 19, 2006 from
http://www.webservicessummit.com/Trends/COBOL_XML.htm
[11] University of Wisconsin-Platteville (2006). Computer
Science and Software Engineering Program Information
[Electronic Version]. Retrieved October 19, 2006 from
http://www.uwplatt.edu/csse
[12] Woodcock, JoAnne (Sr. Contributer). (1994). Computer
Dictionary Second Edition. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press.