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Is cobol platform independent and object oriented


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abrahamgeorge

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:23 pm
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is cobol platform independent and object oriented
abraham
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agkshirsagar

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PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:10 pm
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For different 'cobol' used on MF
NO. icon_neutral.gif

To get your answers ask these to yourself.
What is platform independence?
What is meant by 'object oriented'?
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dick scherrer

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:06 am
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Hello,

To what degree do you mean platform independence? If your programs use nothing but the standard (no compiler/platform specific functions or extensions), you can move COBOL code between IBM mainframe/ UNIXC/Windows with little or no changes. In a previous life icon_smile.gif I was project lead for an exercise that migrated an entire 4 mainframe datacenter to unix/windows. Keep in mind that CICS, Partitioned Datasets, JCL, etc are NOT standard COBOL. Moving code is far more straightforward than these other components. . . .

The entire application inventory was moved and the 4 mainframes were unplugged and rolled out the door.


If you do a bit of searching, you will find that you are able to develop object-oritnted COBOL. I cannot speak for or against this as i've not yet done anything with object-oritnted COBOL.

Having said that, i look back and am not sure if this answers the initial question. Please let me know if this is the kind of input you were looking for. If no, please advise as to what info might be provided.
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cobolunni

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:28 am
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Quote:
Is cobol platform independent

Moving cobol code to another platform means cobol is portable that doesn't stands that cobol is platform independent. Platform independent means we can execute the compiled version of program in any platform.

if platform independence means moving the code from one platform to another then every language is platform independent. Today for every language there is a compiler for every platform we can use the code written in any language in any platfrom (if that is a standard language) thats not mean that the language is platform independent

The platform independent cames when there is a compiled version of code in our hand and we want to run it in any environment

lets take java that is plat form independent

why it is plat form independent because of JVM jvm act as a platform for every environment. Without JVM java is not a platform independent language

if COBOL has a VIRTUAL platform that can run on any platform then COBOL will also become a platform independent one but i dont heared about such virtual platform so i dont think cobol is a platform independent language

Quote:
Is cobol object oriented


ANSI approved cobol standards are
* COBOL-68
* COBOL-74
* COBOL-85
* COBOL 2002
in which COBOL 2002 has object oriented features
check this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL[/quote]
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William Thompson

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:42 pm
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No program can be completely platform independent, even COBOL is not platform independent without compiling it for that platform. So without a compiler to create the platform dependent object code it will not be a platform independent language.

JVM is a real-time interpreter of Java bytecode, the non-executable output of a Java compiler. Reliance on a COBOL compiler is not too different from Java's reliance on a run-time interpreter.
Quote:
No program can be platform independent even java is not platform independent without JVM . So without a virtual machine to run that program it will not be a platform independent language
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William Thompson

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:47 pm
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abrahamgeorge wrote:
is cobol platform independent and object oriented
The first is a matter of definition, as you can see from some of the posts so far.
The second is yes, later compilers do have OO abilities.
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dick scherrer

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 12:45 am
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Hi Bill,

Here we go again. Would be nice if the least experienced weren't so definite in expressing an opinion. Also be nice if if responses weren't primarily "pc-based". Please keep an eye on this so it doesn't get like the "binary arithmetic" thread. After this post, i'll exit out of this thread.

To continue . . .

This is not the industry accepted definition of platform independence:
Quote:
Platform independent means we can execute the compiled version of program in any platform
Where in the world did that come from? icon_confused.gif

In many (most?) languages and operating environments, platform independence is the ability to use the same source on multiple platforms. There is basically no way for the compiled/linked executable machine code from one environment to execute on others.

A couple of quotes from the industry:
Quote:
Software that is platform independent does not rely on any special features of any single platform. . . .

Quote:
A platform-independent model or PIM is a model of a software or business system that is independent of the specific technological platform used to implement it.

Hmmm, kinda what i posted for the original request.

Hopefully, TS received something useful.
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