[Cronos]

It would actually cost a lot less to rewrite the whole application in new technology

False -- COBOL is excellent for formatting data, handling non-relational databases (and yes, non-relational hierarchical dbs are faster if you have a fixed idea what you are doing

Java is nice enough for toys, but for real power a compiled language is better -- C preferably

COBOL programmers are worth a lot, LOT more than Java or anyone else..

Mainframes handle most of the world's business information processing -- it is highly stable with clear garbage cllection unlike Java or thers. Fortran and cbol do not crash randmly or have data leaks

Nothing, abslutely nothing can beat Cobol fr batch processing. Couple it with a JCL and you've got the best way t crunch numbers and data over and over again, reliably.

Finally -- cobol can be read and understod quite easily, unlike other languages

[Lazamataz]

Well slap my behind and call me Ethyl.

I left COBOL for Foxpro, then C#.NET, a long time ago.

And you tell me I could make much more?

[ravager]

Again you are arguing over tools. Here is where a manager has to think differently from a programmer. Hey Cobol is cool if you say so, there are only a few million other Java programmers who would like to disagree with you but guess what..... I DONT CARE EITHER WAYS!

For me, a Cobol programmer is hard to find and they are extremely expensive. And after only tiny bug fix I have no more use for them. You cannot build a web application or a mobile iphone/android app in Cobol. Trying to interface a new system with a legacy system is a cost, scope and time nightmare. No new application will ever be written in Cobol. Whatever could be written in Cobol has long been written. The only Cobol programmers you have today are servicing and fixing existing legacy systems not building anything new. Personally if I could, I would any day scrap all the legacy systems and build them new with any of the latest technologies.

[ravager]

If I was to suggest lets build the new project in COBOL because.... “Java is for toys”....all my Lead Tech engineers and developers (even ones who have at some point actually worked on Cobol) would simply laugh at me.

[ravager]

“if you have a fixed idea what you are doing”

Yeah good luck with that. I wish design requirement could be etched in stone. And good luck with refactoring data, char length, date formats.....making them talk to a java based system and trying to make them pass augments back and forth. And guess what most of the libraries handling the interfacing with the legacy systems are written in Java not Cobol. Why? Because nobody wants to tinker with the internal monolithic coding of COBOL. Thanks to the fact that no one created any documentation or generated APIs in COBOL (something you can do in Java with just one click).

COBOL you say? No thanks.

[khelus]

Back after recovering from a massive data leak in Firefox [C# (not C) based].

Cronos,
Again nice description of the advantages of COBOL and C over point clicky 4GL. I love the use of the term 'garbage collection'.

[khelus]

ravager,
If you read my prior posts you would have realized that I have coded in COBOL CICS [interactive/real time data processing]that interfaced both with the net and with hand held devices used by delivery men.

As Cronos pointed out in his post, no pesky data leaks such as I just have to recover from, plus speed, dependability, accuracy, and 'garbage collection'.