Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!bg0l+
From: bg0l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Bruce E. Golightly)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: COBOL and/or C in a large RDBMS env.
Message-ID: <8YYw0cy00WB2M7-5pY@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 12 Jun 89 13:52:40 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 29

Carnegie Mellon went through something like this. Some of the answers really
aren't clear or clean. I can pass along some of the things we have learned
and some of the conclusions we reached.

1) Nearly everybody knows COBOL. Traditionally, this is one of the first
   languages programmers learn, especially in those schools that place
   some emphasis on business programming.
2) C, when written after a little thought and planning, can be one of the
   most portable languages around. We have successfully ported C back and
   forth from VMS to Unix. This cannot be done with COBOL, 'cause COBOL
   isn't in the Unix world.
3) COBOL does better output formatting than nearly anything.
4) C is (generally) faster, especially in arithmetic operations. COBOL
   arithmetic on the wrong platform can be an incredible dog.

Conclusions and observations:

- We'll plan to do all future development work in C, except for quick portsl
  of systems from other platforms that are already written in COBOL.
- We will continue to provide COBOL support, but only for exissting systems
  or those mentioned above.
- Mixed language systems are probably a mistake. C and COBOL within a single
  application/system is a really obnoxious mix.
- Don't overlook ABF, ReportWriter, RBF and the use of SQL scripts in planning
   your work. These Ingres tools can be real helps.

Hope this stuff helps.

--------------- More ramblings from Bruce --------------------