Any suggestions for a good cobol compiler?

5    04 Jul 2016 00:27 by u/Pwning4Ever

I want to learn cobol fast this summer, but finding a good free compiler has actually been a challenge. Any suggestions?

8 comments

2 u/luckyguy 04 Jul 2016 00:35

Try https://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/ or http://cobolforgcc.sourceforge.net/

More resources https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/?O=0&K=cobol

0 u/Pwning4Ever [OP] 04 Jul 2016 04:48

Thanks, i will try setting it up tomorrow. Getting these things to work is always a pain though.

0 u/elcob32 04 Jul 2016 04:37

Can I ask, why do you want to learn cobol? I mean I don't have anything against it, but there are a lot of languages out there, and cobol isn't exactly cutting edge.

1 u/Pwning4Ever [OP] 04 Jul 2016 04:47

I already know the big languages but as for cobol. My end goal is to be a remote developer (work from home). I will most likely be connected to a mainframe, and cobol is a pretty big language for the mainframe.

Plus i have a cobol class this fall and i heard the class can be a challenge, so i want to just learn cobol to make things easier on me.

2 u/elcob32 04 Jul 2016 04:48

Mainframe development is defiantly an acceptable answer. Good luck.

0 u/Pwning4Ever [OP] 04 Jul 2016 04:50

Thank you, and from what some recruiters told me that there is a big generational gap as many CS schools stopped teaching mainframe. And now the boomers are retiring giving me a nice niche in the developer job market. Could be true, or could be an exaggerated sales-pitch though.

0 u/elcob32 04 Jul 2016 04:58

There's still a niche there of now, but there are less and less mainframe systems being maintained these days. Everyone is moving to modern hardware architecture.

0 u/davisbrown 04 Jul 2016 05:45

OpenCOBOL