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What is cobol engineering and what does it involve
Cobol Engineering is a computer programming language. Developed in 1957, it was primarily developed for business data processing. It has been used for many years in system development, financial and commercial applications and has reached more than 60% of the market. In the early 70s, Cobol was replaced by Structured Query Language (SQL) and this was before the web took off.
Cobol is an imperative language, meaning that it has statements (instructions) which can be executed one at a time. The identifiers in Cobol are the names of variables and the operators are those which convert data from one type to another. Identifiers are case sensitive, but operators are not. In Cobol, the variables have a maximum variable length of 31 characters, although it is rare to find them this long. The data types available in Cobol include numerics (such as integers and floating point numbers), alphabetic character strings (which can be up to 72 characters long) and date and time information.
The benefits of cobol engineering
Cobol is beneficial for two reasons. It is the primary programming language used by automation software and applications. Secondly, with newer versions of Cobol such as Open Cobol, it has become more compatible with other programming languages and can be used alongside Python and Java. Its primary benefit to businesses is that it can be used in-house and therefore, it is not so reliant on acquiring and interpreting a large number of outside people to support the process.
The benefits of Cobol for businesses can therefore be used more effectively as the development time of applications is greatly reduced. Most importantly this will also help to reduce costs as the number of people required to support Cobol applications is much less than that for other programming languages.
Cobol was developed in 1960’s by IBM and has been continuously updated and maintained by the company since then. It is still used in most of the world’s largest companies and contracts, due to the speed with which it can be developed and therefore, the time it saves for businesses.
The reason that Cobol was developed in such a way was because at that time there were no other languages to perform this function. Nowadays there are many powerful programming languages available but Cobol is still the commonly used language for business automation software applications.
How to get started in cobol engineering
The benefits of Cobol Engineering mean that it is easier to get a company up and running than installing the Microsoft Office software. A further benefit is that to set up the computer, all you will need is a keyboard and screen, rather than the day-to-day requirements for other systems. If you want to get started as a Cobol Engineer, then there is a huge amount of help available online and offline. You can even get help offline with Cobol Engineering. This is because the main benefits of Cobol Engineering are due to the fact that it is widely used, and supported by many companies on the Internet.
The first step to starting a Cobol Engineering career is to get some training, so you will find courses available through your local college or via private institutes. You can also learn a lot about Cobol by just reading books on the subject. When you will have enough knowledge, you can begin work on a job.
The future of cobol engineering
Currently, Cobol has a high demand among large businesses and organisations. As systems have been developed and added to, Cobol has remained a key programming language. The future for Cobol is strong as more smaller companies start to take advantage of the benefits it brings. However, as cobol supplies become absent, the demand for Cobol Engineers may diminish.
As the world moves from small to large, it seems Cobol will remain relevant. The large business, which are often slower to change, have kept Cobol at the forefront of business software. As smaller companies begin migrating to newer technologies for their development, Cobol will be present in future applications. The demand for new systems and work is expected from smaller businesses as they become more efficient and bring in more customers.
Software is only becoming a larger part of our world. There are already machines which can run programs without human intervention. As new technologies are used, the demand for Cobol engineers is expected. The demand for Cobol engineers will be stronger in smaller companies as time goes by. As they begin to grow, they will look to use the same technology that large businesses have been using. This may lead to Cobol being more competitive in the future. [ARTICLE END]
