Thursday, March 4, 2021

COBOL and No-Code Apps


OK, so what could a 60-year old programming language have to do with no-code apps? Well, very little except for the one stage of app building that doesn't get much attention - the "program design" phase.

Back before I was dragged kicking and screaming into becoming a manager I was not just a programmer - I was a "programmer/analyst". That meant that I was normally the person who met with the prospective customer and figured out what the customer wanted and how to build a program (or system of programs) to produce the desired output. 

In my opinion, that "design" or planning stage was, and still is, a very important part of building an application, even a fairly simple one. You really need a blueprint of some kind to make sure the program(s) you create run smoothly, efficiently, and do exactly what they're supposed to do.

Creating a detailed set of specifications before starting to write code was always a major part of any COBOL project I worked on and I think that same approach still pays dividends today. Of course. app designs are going to change as they're being built, but having a well thought-out starting point can save a lot of headaches and a lot of re-working of your application. 

If you're interested, here's a website that covers a number of example COBOL projects. It might be worth a few minutes to look at a couple of the more involved projects and just think about how you would design an application like that on your favorite no-code platform:

http://www.csis.ul.ie/cobol/examples/default.htm

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