S12:E2 - What is COBOL and should you learn it (Pete Dashwood)
We dig into whether COBOL should be added to your coding toolbox.
In this episode, we're talking about COBOL, with Pete Dashwood, CEO of PRIMA Computing, a company that helps other companies move off of COBOL. Pete talks about what it was like to be a programmer working in COBOL in the 60’s, what the programming language is good at, and the current state of COBOL.
Show Links
- TwilioQuest (sponsor)
- DevDiscuss (sponsor)
- DevNews (sponsor)
- Career Karma (sponsor)
- Cockroach Labs (sponsor)
- PRIMA Computing
- COBOL
- COBOL, a 60-year-old computer language, is in the COVID-19 spotlight
- High-level programming language
- Assembly language
- Java
- C#
- Python
- IBM Basic Assembly Language and successors
- Mainframe computer
- BASIC
- PL/I
- Von-Neumann Model
- Object-oriented programming
- Batch processing
- Cretaceous COBOL Can Spawn Jurassic Java
- Object-oriented COBOL
- Commodore 64
- Sams Teach Yourself COBOL in 24 Hours
- Straight and Crooked Thinking
Pete Dashwood
Pete Dashwood is the CEO of PRIMA Computing, which helps companies migrate off of COBOL. He started programming computers before what most people call a "computer" was invented. He started with punched cards and paper tape, and much of the history of computing is the history of his career.