GnuCOBOL is gaining momentum, attracting a new generation of developers.
After 20 years of development, GnuCOBOL, an open source version of one of the longest-lived programming languages COBOL, demonstrates its readiness to deploy in industrial systems and its ability to compete with commercial products in any environment. This was stated at the FOSDEM conference by Fabrice Le Fessan, founder of OCamlPro and a participant in the GnuCOBOL project.
GnuCOBOL turns COBOL source code into executable applications and supports a wide range of platforms, including Linux, BSD, various versions of Unix, macOS, Windows, and even Android. The latest version, v. 32, is already being used in the commercial sphere.
The COBOL language, created in 1959 for the financial and human resources departments of large organizations, is still actively used. It is estimated that there are up to 80 billion lines of COBOL code in operation worldwide, and this volume is increasing by 15% annually. Most operations with ATMs, for example, are handled in this language.
Commercial COBOL deployments now dominate the market thanks to offerings from IBM, Micro Focus, and Fujitsu. Despite this, GnuCOBOL attracts attention due to improved performance when migrating from other systems, as users note. The French federal agency DGFIP is one such example of a successful migration from GCOS mainframes to GnuCOBOL.
GnuCOBOL, originally named OpenCOBOL, was launched in 2002 and renamed in 2013. Over the past 3 years, the project has received significant attention from developers. The system easily integrates with modern technologies, while not supporting objects and messages, which, according to the developers, is not a significant drawback due to the specifics of using COBOL.
Greeting "Hello World" on COBOL. The program is divided into 3 parts: The IDENTIFICATION department defines the name of the program, the DATA Department stores data ("Hello World"), and the PROCEDURE department contains the function
It is also worth noting that GnuCOBOL has successfully passed 97% of the COBOL 85 compliance tests, ensuring a high level of compatibility.
Also new is SuperBOL developed by OCamlPro, which is an integrated development environment for GnuCOBOL. SuperBOL works as an extension for Visual Studio Code, which includes a full-fledged COBOL processor written in the OCaml programming language. Being at an early stage of development, SuperBOL allows specialists to work with COBOL code directly in the Visual Studio Code environment.
Interestingly, GnuCOBOL will be one of the programming languages in the Google Summer of Code program, providing a new generation of programmers with a chance to get acquainted with this language not as an outdated technology, but as a relevant and developing tool.
After 20 years of development, GnuCOBOL, an open source version of one of the longest-lived programming languages COBOL, demonstrates its readiness to deploy in industrial systems and its ability to compete with commercial products in any environment. This was stated at the FOSDEM conference by Fabrice Le Fessan, founder of OCamlPro and a participant in the GnuCOBOL project.
GnuCOBOL turns COBOL source code into executable applications and supports a wide range of platforms, including Linux, BSD, various versions of Unix, macOS, Windows, and even Android. The latest version, v. 32, is already being used in the commercial sphere.
The COBOL language, created in 1959 for the financial and human resources departments of large organizations, is still actively used. It is estimated that there are up to 80 billion lines of COBOL code in operation worldwide, and this volume is increasing by 15% annually. Most operations with ATMs, for example, are handled in this language.
Commercial COBOL deployments now dominate the market thanks to offerings from IBM, Micro Focus, and Fujitsu. Despite this, GnuCOBOL attracts attention due to improved performance when migrating from other systems, as users note. The French federal agency DGFIP is one such example of a successful migration from GCOS mainframes to GnuCOBOL.
GnuCOBOL, originally named OpenCOBOL, was launched in 2002 and renamed in 2013. Over the past 3 years, the project has received significant attention from developers. The system easily integrates with modern technologies, while not supporting objects and messages, which, according to the developers, is not a significant drawback due to the specifics of using COBOL.
Greeting "Hello World" on COBOL. The program is divided into 3 parts: The IDENTIFICATION department defines the name of the program, the DATA Department stores data ("Hello World"), and the PROCEDURE department contains the function
It is also worth noting that GnuCOBOL has successfully passed 97% of the COBOL 85 compliance tests, ensuring a high level of compatibility.
Also new is SuperBOL developed by OCamlPro, which is an integrated development environment for GnuCOBOL. SuperBOL works as an extension for Visual Studio Code, which includes a full-fledged COBOL processor written in the OCaml programming language. Being at an early stage of development, SuperBOL allows specialists to work with COBOL code directly in the Visual Studio Code environment.
Interestingly, GnuCOBOL will be one of the programming languages in the Google Summer of Code program, providing a new generation of programmers with a chance to get acquainted with this language not as an outdated technology, but as a relevant and developing tool.
