29
votes
How can there be so much "business logic" for a company that they cannot drop their old COBOL/mainframe code?
There are two huge factors at play. The question as asked deals with the complexity and risk of replacement. Let's set that aside for a moment. The first problem is simply one of value. Let's say that ...
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19
votes
How can there be so much "business logic" for a company that they cannot drop their old COBOL/mainframe code?
One thing about COBOL in particular is that its built-in decimal data type is perfect for money calculations; PHP doesn't have that. Extrapolating a little, some of the old platforms have useful ...
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16
votes
Accepted
What was COBOL's syntax first described in?
Here is a link to the COBOL 60 spec :
Initial Specifications for a COmmon Business Orientated Language (1960)
BNF was first used the same year to describe ALGOL, here is a chapter
ALGOL 60 - Chapter 6,...
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15
votes
How can there be so much "business logic" for a company that they cannot drop their old COBOL/mainframe code?
(Koff, koff ...) Speaking as someone who used to teach a community-college course in COBOL ... there are actually key attributes about that particular language which have never been replicated since.
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10
votes
How can there be so much "business logic" for a company that they cannot drop their old COBOL/mainframe code?
Based on what I have seen here are the main factors:
There is little to no documentation for these systems. There's no one to ask about requirements
COBOL is not a structured language. There's a ...
- 30.9k
2
votes
How can there be so much "business logic" for a company that they cannot drop their old COBOL/mainframe code?
I refrain from the discussion whether a legacy system should not better be maintained or migrated.
Let us first see what migration means.
A similar scenario. A large software system in the script ...
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