Please don't top post.
Singer X.J. Wang wrote:
On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 11:04, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Chris Geldenhuis wrote:
Has anyone on this list had any success with installing and using Open Cobol on RH or CentOS?
Any pointers would be very welcome.
I have Googled and am working with Vince on the Open Cobol mailing
list
to try to resolve installation problems.
*sigh*
<pulls brown paper bag over head> ObAdmission: I wrote *way* too much COBOL a long time ago, in a galaxy far away....
It really is past time to migrate to another language, y'know. You could probably move it to something like perl fairly easily, or even *bleah* java.
Yes, lets move millions of lines of tested business code to Perl... and what testing? we don't need to test it.
Why on *earth* would you think I would suggest not testing? Rather, if it were up to me, I'd run them in parallel for a year (so as to include year-end closing).
Among the reasons I suggest it is to a) get rid of the tested spaghetti code (and yes, I've maintained crap like that, though not in a lot of years, thankfully); b) structure it using control structures that all modern language have (as opposed to, say, PERFORM 1500-DUMMY-PARAGRAPH THROUGH 1500-DUMMY-PARAGRAPH-EXIT VARYING I FROM 1 WHILE I < 200, which yes, I left a lot of behind me, faking for/next loops that way), and, finally, c) it's getting harder and harder to find anyone who knows COBOL, since it's not a required course, and hasn't been for a lot of years....
mark mark