blog/data/2020-04-29-gnu-cobol.txt

   1 Title: GnuCOBOL, a free platform to learn and use COBOL - nice free software
   2 Tags: english, debian, nice free software
   3 Date: 2020-04-29 13:10
   4
   5 <p>The curiosity got the better of me when
   6 <a href="https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/04/06/1424246/new-jersey-desperately-needs-cobol-programmers">Slashdot
   7 reported</a> that New Jersey was desperately looking for
   8 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL">COBOL</a> programmers,
   9 and a few days later it was reported that
  10 <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/ibm-rallies-cobol-engineers-to-save-overloaded-unemployment-systems-eeadf13eddce">IBM
  11 tried to locate COBOL programmers</a>.</p>
  12
  13 <p>I thus decided to have a look at free software alternatives to
  14 learn COBOL, and had the pleasure to find
  15 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/">GnuCOBOL</a> was
  16 already <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gnucobol">in
  17 Debian</a>.  It used to be called Open Cobol, and is a "compiler"
  18 transforming COBOL code to C or C++ before giving it to GCC or Visual
  19 Studio to build binaries.</p>
  20
  21 <p>I managed to get in touch with upstream, and was impressed with the
  22 quick response, and also was happy to see a new Debian maintainer
  23 taking over when the original one recently asked to be replaced.  A
  24 new Debian upload was done as recently as yesterday.</p>
  25
  26 <p>Using the Debian package, I was able to follow a simple COBOL
  27 introduction and make and run simple COBOL programs.  It was fun to
  28 learn a new programming language.  If you want to test for yourself,
  29 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCOBOL">the GnuCOBOL Wikipedia
  30 page</a> have a few simple examples to get you startet.</p>
  31
  32 <p>As I do not have much experience with COBOL, I do not know how
  33 standard compliant it is, but it claim to pass most tests from COBOL
  34 test suite, which sound good to me.  It is nice to know it is possible
  35 to learn COBOL using software without any usage restrictions, and I am
  36 very happy such nice free software project as this is available.  If
  37 you as me is curious about COBOL, check it out.</p>
  38
  39 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  40 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  41 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>