cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/16750896

The NSA has a video recording of a 1982 lecture by Adm. Grace Hopper titled “Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People.” The agency is (so far) refusing to release it.

Basically, the recording is in an obscure video format. People at the NSA can’t easily watch it, so they can’t redact it. So they won’t do anything.

Hi everyone!

Following the results of the icon poll I am looking to make a new icon for our COBOL community here!

COBOL does not have an official logo like other programming languages. I am worried the current logo communicates that COBOL is an archaic, outdated, or dead language, therefore I am seeking suggestions for alternatives.

For suggestions, please suggest an icon from game-icons.net and what hex colour gradient it should have. A brief explanation of why you chose that image/what it represents would be great too but not required!

An example suggestion format:

• Icon: https://game-icons.net/1x1/delapouite/triceratops-head.html
• Gradiant: 2EE5D2 - A01FC5
• Additional Info (Optional): I chose a Triceratops because a lot of COBOL imagery from third-parties use a Triceratops. The colour gradient is the one used in this post.

Introducing Otterkit COBOL

Given that this is a community about the COBOL programming language, I'd like to take the opportunity to make a post about this project that I'm a part of. Our goal is to create a compiler implementing the ISO 2023 standard of the COBOL language. If you're confused/interested in what that means, please read further.

Why a new COBOL Compiler?

It is often believed that COBOL is an antiquated and archaic language: the logo of this community is literally a dinosaur. But this is not true. Did you that as of the most recent version (ISO 2023), the language has:

• objects and classes
• generics
• concurrent async both locally and remotely (message passing)

Sounds more like a Java or C# than a fossil, doesn't it?

As the "2023" in "ISO 2023" implies, the language has been evolving ever since it was created in the '50s. But why is the reputation of this language so bad? Firstly, it is that most code in COBOL adheres to the old 1985 standard: that was when the GNU manifesto was first published! This means that the language has been functionally stuck in the public eye for decades, as enterprise systems see little reason to put effort into modernization. This leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy, where COBOL programmers are assigned to tangles of technical debt and even FOSS compilers like GnuCOBOL target the 1985 standard because it's the one that's used. But it doesn't have to be this way.

A Vision of the Future

It is our belief in the Otterkit Project team that modern COBOL, once free of propriety vendor lock-in and outdated stereotypes, has the potential to be a modern - nay, insightful language that deserves a place in the current programming language landscape. That's why we're making an Apache 2.0-licensed COBOL compiler on the .net platform to bring modern COBOL out in the open. This way, we hope to prove that even dinosaurs can walk again.

We would appreciate any help we can get: below are links to a presentation team head KT made on the project for the .net youtube channel, and a link to the github repo. Please take some time to look around, and if it strikes your fancy please consider contributing with either code or money, any bit helps.

Useful Links

Github Repo: https://github.com/otterkit/otterkit

Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/live/UASkE7cojSE?feature=share

Megathread for people who want to get started learning COBOL! This list is a working document and will be updated over time.

Feel free to comment with resources you think should be added to this list!

Free Compilers & Extensions

• GnuCOBOL - A free/libre COBOL compiler
• OtterKit - A modern FOSS COBOL compiler
• Learn COBOL - Visual Studio Code Extension
• Visual COBOL Personal Edition - Learn COBOL with Visual Studio or Eclipse

Free Online Training Courses

• Open Mainframe Project - Video materials on IBM Digital Learning Platform, Coursera, Pluralsight, or YouTube
• Micro Focus COBOL Fundamentals - Instructor-led videos, hands-on tutorials, and development tools
• Department of CSIS - COBOL programming tutorials, lectures, exercises, and examples
• Tutorials Point
• Learn COBOL in One Video - YouTube course
• COBOL Programming 101 - YouTube course

Free Books

• Visual COBOL: A Developer's Guide to Modern COBOL
• Visual COBOL: New Application Modernization Tools for the Java Developer

Other Resources

• Wikipedia
• PUB400 - Public IBM i 7.5 server

A common statistic I see quoted about COBOL is that there are "more than 200 billion lines of COBOL in existence with an extimated 5 billion of new code [written] annually". This statistic comes from a 1997 study by the Gartner Group. Archive Link Here

A more recent study by Vanson Bourne (commissioned by Micro Focus) in Feburary 2022 estimated that there are actually around 775-850 billion lines of COBOL in daily use. Archive Link Here