4 ms·
Why should I trust what is basically a Micro Focus press release? I actually had to use Micro Focus COBOL in a project once. It was awful: COBOL the worst lang
by maxharris 15y ago
Why should I trust what is basically a Micro Focus press release?
I actually had to use Micro Focus COBOL in a project once. It was awful: COBOL the worst language ever (awful syntax, no local variables!) But what's worse is that the Micro Focus product is nearly unusable (at least on unix platforms). It's loaded with copy-protection garbage, and the installer is deliberately left in a broken state so that you must call Micro Focus support (just guess what a support contract costs: it's not cheap.) This should not happen when you drop three grand on a compiler.
Summary: avoid COBOL, unless you want to rely on a company that should have been out of business long ago (and it probably will be; just wait a few years), and a language that should never have existed.
- rbanffy 15y agoYou can "apt-get install open-cobol" for free. It's still COBOL, but, at least, it doesn't come with Micro Focus.
- Luyt 15y agoAha, it works like a preprocessor: (user@pasta) /home/user $ psearch -l cobol lang/open-cobol OpenCOBOL is an open-source COBOL compiler, which translates COBOL programs to C code and compiles it using GCC. WWW: http://www.opencobol.org/ Clickable link: http://www.opencobol.org/ http://www.opencobol.org/
- rbanffy 15y agoIt would be more fun if it compiled to FORTRAN and used f77 to compile it ;-)
- gnufs 15y agoI couldn't be sure if their promotion video for COBOL was a parody the whole time I watched it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUrdX9xJx58 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUrdX9xJx58
- pjscott 15y agoThat video is hilarious in small doses, and horrifying in larger ones. I'm impressed.