Micro Focus releases PL/I migration kit

Posted by Mike on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - 354 views

Dating back to the 1960s, the idea behind PL/I was that it would provide a common programming language for business and scientific applications, allowing it to replace COBOL and FORTRAN. The language is largely, though not exclusively, associated with IBM mainframes.

While COBOL was commonly used to write commercial programs, some companies did adopt PL/I. The language is still offered by IBM, with support for z/OS®, VM, VSE/ESA, AIX, and Windows.

Micro Focus – perhaps best known for its COBOL compilers – has now released Micro Focus Server Enterprise Edition for PL/I to migrate IBM mainframe PL/I applications to Windows Server, Linux or Unix with minimal changes. The company claims a potential reduction in operating costs of up to 70%, without the risks involved in rewriting or replacing applications.

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Starsoft Develops Cross-Platform Applications with Veryant isCOBOL

Posted by Trevor Eddolls on Wednesday, November 23, 2011 - 297 views

COBOL, The Computer Language that Refused to Die

Posted by Mike on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - 334 views

There is a tendency to think that with technology everything old is swept aside by the new. But behind every shiny toy is one of the most powerful axioms of engineering: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Once established, computer languages tend to fit that model. It is not simply that they have been used to create applications which continue to work, the software engineers’ coding skills do not disappear instantly either. Although there cannot be many around who were in at the genesis of Cobol in 1959.

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Veryant’s COBOL Technology Improves Thin Client Performance and Portability

Posted by Mike on Thursday, August 11, 2011 - 286 views

CHICAGO – August 15, 2011 – Veryant, the COBOL and Java technology innovator, today announced up to a 40% thin client performance improvement, new cross-platform portability, and modernized user interface capabilities for its popular isCOBOL Evolve.

The new software release maximizes the value of existing COBOL assets, reduces ongoing software licensing costs, and simplifies application modernization.

Visit www.veryant.com for more info.

Applying lean practices to application development

Posted by Mike on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - 286 views

I may have to interact with middleware, enterprise apps that may be in SAP or Seybold, and I may even have to go off to some legacy app that’s in COBOL.

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He CICS, he scores!

Posted by Trevor Eddolls on Sunday, July 10, 2011 - 219 views

Sadly, as a title, it only works if you’re in the parts of the world where CICS is pronounced ‘kicks’ and where people play football (and getting the ball in the back of the net is very important!). But wherever you are, I want to talk about IBM’s transaction processing system whose full title is Customer Information Control System and which runs under z/OS and z/VSE.

WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

The case for COBOL

Posted by Mike on Saturday, July 9, 2011 - 201 views

It is still innovative, agile and everywhere

Often the next version of the technology has arrived even before an organisation has had a chance to get a grip with the current version. So how can one technology survive over 50 years, and continue to dominate the Industry among such change and growth?

Even Java, a much lauded language when it arrived 20 years ago, is already deemed to be old and “legacy”. Yet, according to analyst Gartner, more than 70% of the world’s business is run by a technology that was christened over 50 years ago – COBOL, or Common Business-Oriented Language.

Over the many years COBOL has continuously evolved to keep pace with technology developments, integrating seamlessly with most modern technologies today. Most importantly, it has retained many of its traditional strengths.

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Migrating legacy applications: if it ain’t broke, don’t move it

Posted by Mike on Friday, April 8, 2011 - 288 views

Scaling of users and transactions has multiplied a hundred fold in the time since 20-year-old business IT applications written in older (often mainframe-centric) languages such as COBOL were written.  READ MORE