Unlocking existing application value

With existing application re-use firmly back on the strategy map, Julian Dobbins, Micro Focus, believes the time is right to recognize the role COBOL has to play.

Industry speculation on the decline of mainframe skills has once again focused attention on the business world’s reliance on older computer languages, often questioning their ability to run the IT systems of the 21st century.  Much of this criticism is inevitably directed at COBOL, despite (or perhaps because of) its widespread and on-going use in some 75 percent of all business transactions worldwide.  You might be forgiven for thinking that this simple statistic should enhance its reputation rather than diminish it, but until very recently this has not been the case.

The majority of COBOL code originated on mainframes, often as part of applications first developed more than ten years ago.  Close links to such a platform, so widely perceived as costly, inflexible and in decline, have brought a degree of guilt by association for the programming language.  And despite the post-Y2K shift in emphasis towards the re-use of existing software assets, and a current understanding of the inherent risks in major rewrite strategies, negative attitudes still remain.

Application providers who have built a business around the re-use of existing applications and skills have not been immune to such negative perceptions.  A potential customer’s confidence in the functionality and business fit of a vendor’s software can sometimes be undermined upon hearing that it is partly written in COBOL - as if suggesting that the application will be slow and lack innovation.  Also, and with some considerable irony, reports of packaged solutions successfully replacing bespoke software systems only add fuel to this perception – despite the fact that many of these packages have COBOL at their core.

Analysts now acknowledge the importance of leveraging the unique investment organizations have made in existing applications while updating their underlying IT infrastructure (see sidebar). We now see that business decisions are leading the way toward a future where COBOL technology has a lengthy and considerable role to play in supporting the provision of key business services into a contemporary IT infrastructure.

Having arrived at a point where the mood is slowly shifting once more in re-using existing application’s favor, it is interesting to go further and consider why it is that one language, responsible for so much of today’s business computing, and with a continued growth rate of some three to five billion lines of code a year, should have received such negative publicity over the years.

First and foremost is the fact that the original definition of the language was created in the late fifties, well before all modern operating systems, current hardware platforms or programming models existed.  To think of such a language as having a role to play in today’s highly integrated, fast-moving, real-time business world has previously seemed far-fetched.

And this would be a reasonable view if COBOL had remained still for all those years, or had been designed without any thought for the future.  But neither is the case.  Grace Hopper, COBOL’s creator, is attributed with saying “I've always been more interested in the future than in the past”, and this philosophy has stood us in good stead, as the language has moved from standard to standard, embracing the needs of each new computing generation.

Second is the fact that all those vital business transactions written in COBOL are still running, and have been for years and decades with little modification to the core logic.  Put simply, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.  There is rarely a compelling business justification to replace an entire application, simply because of its programming language.  Why place an entire enhancement schedule on hold for months or years simply to produce a carbon copy in another language?   

As a result of the short-sighted view management often takes towards IT, organizations have failed to maintain a sufficient level of investment in existing applications and platforms to ensure that they continue to provide a cost-effective and flexible base for IT to build upon. This has led to a lack of business value and to high-profile operational inefficiencies.

But this has nothing to do with language.  The value of an application is a result of its fit to the business not of its coding.  The language, and the development tools available to support COBOL, are more than capable of delivering upon contemporary requirements, with support for XML, Web services, and Java interoperability.  Smart IT organizations recognize this and invest accordingly.

Ultimately, though, as Grace Hopper is also credited with saying, “one accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions”.  Perhaps it is time the industry paused to reflect on COBOL’s on-going contribution to the world of business, and take that as the true measure of its worth as a contemporary language.

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