Exercises: The COBOL Landscape Today

Exercise 1.1: Industry Research

Research one of the following organizations and write a one-page summary of how they use COBOL (or mainframe technology) in their operations:

a) JPMorgan Chase b) The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) c) UnitedHealth Group d) Deutsche Bank e) The Social Security Administration

Your summary should address: - What business functions rely on COBOL/mainframe systems - Any publicly reported modernization efforts - The approximate scale of their mainframe operations (if available)

Exercise 1.2: Timeline Extension

Using the historical timeline in Section 1.2, create an extended timeline that includes at least five additional milestones from COBOL's history. These might include:

  • The formation of specific CODASYL committees
  • The first COBOL compiler on a specific platform
  • Major vendor implementations (IBM, Micro Focus, Fujitsu)
  • The Y2K crisis and its impact on COBOL
  • The COVID-19 unemployment system crisis of 2020
  • Recent AI-assisted COBOL migration tools

Cite your sources for each milestone.

Exercise 1.3: The Replacement Cost Calculation

A fictional bank, Midwest Federal, has a core banking system consisting of 5 million lines of COBOL. Industry estimates suggest that rewriting legacy code to a modern language costs between $15 and $50 per line of code when you account for analysis, coding, testing, deployment, and organizational change management.

a) Calculate the minimum and maximum estimated cost to replace Midwest Federal's COBOL system. b) If Midwest Federal currently spends $8 million per year maintaining its COBOL system, how many years of maintenance costs would the replacement represent at the minimum estimate? At the maximum? c) Discuss at least three risks of the replacement project that are not captured in the per-line cost estimate.

Exercise 1.4: Career Path Analysis

Using job boards (Indeed, LinkedIn, Dice, or similar), find five current COBOL-related job postings. For each posting, record:

  • Job title
  • Employer (or industry if anonymous)
  • Location (or remote status)
  • Required experience level
  • Salary range (if listed)
  • Required skills beyond COBOL

Analyze your findings: What patterns do you see in the required skills? How do the salaries compare to similar postings for Java, Python, or other languages?

Exercise 1.5: The Debate Essay

Write a 500-word essay taking one side of the "Is COBOL Dying or Thriving?" debate from Section 1.6. Support your argument with at least three specific pieces of evidence (statistics, case studies, or expert opinions). Then write a 200-word rebuttal from the opposing perspective.

Exercise 1.6: Running Example Exploration

Choose either GlobalBank or MedClaim and write a list of at least ten specific COBOL programs that you think the system would need. For each program, provide:

  • A PROGRAM-ID (following COBOL naming conventions: up to 30 characters, no spaces)
  • A one-sentence description of what the program does
  • Whether it would run as a batch job or an online transaction

Example: - PROGRAM-ID: ACCT-BAL-INQ - Description: Retrieves and displays the current balance for a customer account. - Type: Online (CICS transaction)

Exercise 1.7: The Time Capsule Program

Complete the TIME-CAPSULE program from Section 1.12. Extend it to also:

a) Calculate and display the number of years since each major COBOL standard (1968, 1974, 1985, 2002, 2014, 2023). b) Display a message indicating which standard era the current year falls in (e.g., "We are in the COBOL 2023 era"). c) Calculate how many years until COBOL's 100th anniversary (2060) and display it.

Exercise 1.8: Reflection

Write a one-paragraph reflection on your own path to this textbook. What motivated you to study COBOL? What are your career goals, and how does COBOL fit into them? What are you most curious about in the chapters ahead? There are no wrong answers here — the purpose is to articulate your learning goals.