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Ask HN: Any active COBOL devs here? What are you working on?

234 points _false | 7 comments | 18 Jul 25 13:05 UTC | HN request time: 1.254s | source | bottom

COBOL legacy systems in finance and government are somewhat of a meme. However, I've never actually met a single person who's day job is to maintain one. I'd be curious to learn what systems are you working on?
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zeeframe ◴[18 Jul 25 13:45 UTC] No.44604586[source]▶
I’m not a COBOL dev but I work with mainframes(z/OS). Most COBOL applications I’ve seen have been banking and insurance related with few exceptions. Most of them either run as a series of batch jobs or via transaction managers like IMS and CICS. Backends are usually sequential files(we call them datasets),DB2,VSAM(Virtual Storage Access Method) or DL/1(hierarchical DB that’s part of IMS). Quite a few places I’ve seen have run IBM MQ as well.

If changes are made to these systems it’s often due to changes in regulation or driven by changes in the business(new financial products being offered etc.

Off-topic: I’ve seen quite a few mainframe related posts on HN fly by over the years. I’ve been meaning to create an account and participate but I’ve only gotten around to it just now.

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1. znpy ◴[18 Jul 25 14:57 UTC] No.44605362[source]▶
Dumb question: mainframes and z/OS look interesting, how does one get started with learning about those systems and those environments ?
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2. zeeframe ◴[18 Jul 25 15:23 UTC] No.44605726[source]▶
Not a dumb question at all! In Europe I’ve seen a few training programs held by companies looking to get new talent in to learn from the older techs. Browse around and see if any companies around you have something like that.

There are some free resources available that will allow you to get training but I haven’t tried them myself. IBM Z Xplore is worth a look as an example: https://www.ibm.com/products/z/resources/zxplore

I hope you find a way in, more mainframe developers and sysadmins(often called systemsprogrammers in the mainframe niche) are always needed.

Edit*: Spelling and grammar

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3. schlauerfox ◴[18 Jul 25 15:30 UTC] No.44605816[source]▶
I'm not a mainframe programmer, but coming from x86 land I was very curious. I really learned a lot from the IBM Coursera "Intro to Mainframe" since none of my experience really applied it was tough. It had a real shell account to practice with though.

https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/ibm-z-mai...

Also the MOSHIX mainframe YouTube channel has a lot of info, and helped me setup HERCULES emulator for my own little mainframe experience.

http://www.hercules-390.org/

4. mindcrime ◴[18 Jul 25 15:40 UTC] No.44605955[source]▶
There's an emulator called Hercules[1] that lets you run (some) mainframe stuff on a PC. There are limits to what you can run on it though, mostly due to licensing issues with IBM.

You can also look at the IBM Redbooks site[2]. Search for terms like Z/OS, MVS, CICS, DB/2, etc. and you'll find a lot of IBM books, whitepapers (well, they call them redpapers, but whatever) and so on.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_(emulator)

[2]: https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/

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5. asymmetric ◴[18 Jul 25 16:01 UTC] No.44606269[source]▶
This is a good article on the subject: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/07/the-i...
6. whistl034 ◴[18 Jul 25 16:04 UTC] No.44606305[source]▶
I've setup Hercules on my Mac before. Fun tool, since I last touched OS2/MVS 40 years ago. Best part is many of the old OS's (MVT, MVS, vm/370) are all still available since IBM never saw the need to copyright them.
7. jmbwell ◴[18 Jul 25 18:29 UTC] No.44608199[source]▶
I’ve run through a bunch of ZXplore and it’s more fun than I expected.

They have it hooked in to VS Code now. It’s weirdly modern. And you get to play on a real z machine.

Recommendable summer/holiday tinkering project. It’s amazing how much and yet how little has changed in computing and transaction processing.