[Info-vax] COBOL Is Obsolete (was Re: Any stronger versions of the LMF planned ?)

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 9/22/2021 4:15 AM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Saturday, September 18, 2021 at 12:14:00 AM UTC+12, Scott Dorsey
> wrote:
>> COBOL isn't a programming language. COBOL is a data description
>> language that has some programming features on the side. If you
>> look at a well-written typical COBOL program, the procedure
>> division is a very small part of the total length.
> 
> The specific question being considered here is interfacing from COBOL
> to SQL. COBOL was born back in the era of ISAM files, and never
> really adapted to the widespread adoption of SQL and relational
> databases. This in spite of the fact that COBOL was supposed to be a
> “business-oriented” language, and SQL has become rather essential to
> just about every kind of “business” need since the 1980s.

That does not really match reality.

SQL is very much used in Cobol.

Cobol and embedded SQL to either Oracle Rdb or Oracle DB
(Oracle Classic in traditional VMS terminology) may very well
be the most widely used RDBMS and programming language combination
on VMS.

Arne