Cyrus Montakab Blog - Responses

Re: Happy 50th Birthday to COBOL

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:25:20 GMT

the correct comparison would be to ask: would you replace the footings of your house (even if it's 50 years old) as you do it with your car or cd player :) of course not, even if you see on discovery that it's possible. rather wait the last moment before collapse and do it when you have no other chance left...

Re: Resistence is Futile ... You will be Translated

Cyrus Montakab — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:41:15 GMT

Very, very good point. Actually - we are working on that :)

It works like this: During the translation, the "paragraphs" (OO method) get parameterised, ie the data-classes used within the "methods" will be passed to it. The input/output of the method can therefore be isolated, and we can automatically generate a Unit test script to test these.

Putting together valid test data can also be achived semi-automatically. But I better shut-up now before giving away too much of the company IP!

Re: COBOL programmer salaries up by 43% in 1 year

Cyrus Montakab — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:40:32 GMT

I think the figures on the website refers to permanent jobs - not contracting positions. Also, I would have thought the COBOL "permenant" job market would be bigger than the "contract" one ... because companies are not looking at big new developments in COBOL (suited to contractors), but are looking at long term maintenance of them.

On topic of "sweatshops" - If you were a manager for BIG company, would you outsource your business-critical application to a sweatshop ?