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How difficult is Cobol to learn compared to other languages? I admit I had a bias against it when I was watching Dave Plummer’s software drag race between it, C

How difficult is Cobol to learn compared to other languages? I admit I had a bias against it when I was watching Dave Plummer’s software drag race between it, C++, and Fortran[1] but I was absolutely blown away at it being faster than the Fortran implementation, and about 50% slower than the C++ one. For something so verbose, I wasn’t expecting it to compile to such efficient machine code. [1] https://youtu.be/yYcHWGxtRQo https://youtu.be/yYcHWGxtRQo

mhh__ 5y ago
50% slower than C++ is pretty terrible. Verbosity is almost more helpful for optimization in a way, in the sense that C code ends up being fast because it's simpler than C is harder to optimize. As for COBOL, isn't one of the issues that it's super complicated and not specified properly until recently?
- hodgesrm 5y ago
  Back in the day it was mostly very verbose but extremely fast. Cobol was designed for batch processing on use cases like accounting systems. We used it on signal processing apps, which had a lot of data, mostly on tape. It could rip through data stored on high-density mag tape--it was able to process data at the speed of the device. (I did COBOL apps in the early 1980s.)
  - corpdronejuly 5y ago
    I love stories like this. It's so much harder to push our hardware to "the speed of the device" anymore, and hearing stories about others doing that is cool.
    - hodgesrm 5y ago
      You could tell if you screwed something up performance-wise, because the tape would have to reposition and reread if your program was not ready to read blocks coming of the device. With IBM 6250 BPI drives this meant it would overshoot massively, rewind a bunch of tape, and then have another run at it. [0] It was painful to watch and not super good for the mag tape either. The old movies that show tape drives sort of stuttering back and forth reflect slow program performance. That's not really how they looked for most of the things I worked on. [0] https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3420.html https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_342...
namdnay 5y ago
SWA don't run COBOL anymore (at least, their core systems don't). It's mainly C++
theodorethomas 5y ago
The "race" was between compilers, GNU compilers in fact, not languages.

mhh__ 5y ago

50% slower than C++ is pretty terrible. Verbosity is almost more helpful for optimization in a way, in the sense that C code ends up being fast because it's simpler than C is harder to optimize. As for COBOL, isn't one of the issues that it's super complicated and not specified properly until recently?

hodgesrm 5y ago
Back in the day it was mostly very verbose but extremely fast. Cobol was designed for batch processing on use cases like accounting systems. We used it on signal processing apps, which had a lot of data, mostly on tape. It could rip through data stored on high-density mag tape--it was able to process data at the speed of the device. (I did COBOL apps in the early 1980s.)
- corpdronejuly 5y ago
  I love stories like this. It's so much harder to push our hardware to "the speed of the device" anymore, and hearing stories about others doing that is cool.
  - hodgesrm 5y ago
    You could tell if you screwed something up performance-wise, because the tape would have to reposition and reread if your program was not ready to read blocks coming of the device. With IBM 6250 BPI drives this meant it would overshoot massively, rewind a bunch of tape, and then have another run at it. [0] It was painful to watch and not super good for the mag tape either. The old movies that show tape drives sort of stuttering back and forth reflect slow program performance. That's not really how they looked for most of the things I worked on. [0] https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3420.html https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_342...

namdnay 5y ago

SWA don't run COBOL anymore (at least, their core systems don't). It's mainly C++

theodorethomas 5y ago

The "race" was between compilers, GNU compilers in fact, not languages.