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PART 4: COBOL—The Road Ahead

PART 4: COBOL—The Road Ahead

The Ailments of Age We’ve come to the final installment of our homage to COBOL. Let’s look at the challenges it faces in the future. You do not reach 65 years without having endured some difficult experiences. COBOL bears those scars just as anything else would at...

COBOL, My Saving Grace

COBOL, My Saving Grace

Early 2025 will mark 45 years of my IBM mainframe-centric career that began as a COBOL applications programmer. As a language, COBOL differs from the terse, mathematical programming languages and Assembler languages.  COBOL is perfect for people who don’t have a...

Enhancing IMS Performance with Dataset-Level Encryption

Enhancing IMS Performance with Dataset-Level Encryption

In a recent virtual user group session, Dennis Eichelberger, a veteran with over 45 years of mainframe and database systems experience, presented an insightful discussion on implementing dataset-level encryption for IMS (Information Management System). Hosted by...

COBOL PART 3: The Experts’ View

COBOL PART 3: The Experts’ View

As COBOL reaches 65 years of loyal service in the IT world, this third piece in a four-part homage how a veteran IT technology has remained successful for so long. We previously introduced some of the reasons behind COBOL’s enduring success as a business language. Yet...

Thoughts, experiences, and insights about COBOL

Thoughts, experiences, and insights about COBOL

Looking back, I can still vividly remember the year when I graduated from college with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. It was 2008.  Coming from university, I was quite confident in the skills and exposure that I acquired. PHP with...

PART 2: COBOL— Thriving to survive

PART 2: COBOL— Thriving to survive

As COBOL reaches 65 years of loyal service to the IT world, this second piece in a four-part homage attempts to answer how a veteran IT technology has remained successful for so long. In the modern age, enterprise IT has grown in scale and complexity beyond...