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Comment by pjungwir | Hacker News Reader

Assuming I wanted to pick up COBOL and land a contract gig, what else do I need to know? A language is syntax but also libraries, patterns, and ecosystem. For instance it's hard to do Rails without knowing Git, Bash, Linux, SQL, Javascript, CSS, RSpec, Capistrano, Devise, MVC, etc. Do COBOL apps typically talk to relational databases, or is everything stored in fixed-width flat files? Do COBOL programmers use git? Am I going to need to keep an AS/400 running in my garage?

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All COBOL shops have developed what could be called their own frameworks from scratch over the years. Learn COBOL and DB2/SQL. If you end up working on mainframes. JCL as well. If on AS/400. RPG and ACL. Most developers don't really have to know much else then COBOL. Just type in a editor, run commands, done.

There are COBOL repositories on Github[1], it would probably be worth looking at what they do. From that list, here's a micro web framework[2] which while it may not be indicative of what you would expect to do in COBOL if hired to work in it, is interesting.

1: https://github.com/trending?l=cobol

2: https://github.com/azac/cobol-on-wheelchair

> Assuming I wanted to pick up COBOL and land a contract gig, what else do I need to know?

In a saner world, nothing. Someone hiring for COBOL would see a candidate who knows a handful of other programming languages, some database theory, and a little bit of other experience and hire and actually train them.

Databases often don't enter into it. A lot of mainframe COBOL work is batch-oriented. It basically just streams through a series of flat files.

Source: I worked for a bank in my youth, which involved writing COBOL.

I had a class called "Introduction to file processing" that was basically "here's how you manage your data files," and taought us about the evolution from sequential access, to ISAM, to VSAM. Ended up working in RDMBS/SQL but it was a fascinating class - despite the assignments being in FORTRAN.

As far as I know, the heyday of COBOL was long before relational databases, and any VCS is likely to be RCS or CVS.

DB/2 is used quite extensively. But a lot of things are still flat files. On System I you can access DB/2 databases as if it were flat files as well. Not actually useful if you ask me but I suppose useful when the developers didn't know SQL. I'm on my phone so explaining how it works is a hassle.

Endevor for version control on Z/OS.

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