I am considering the development of a Cobol compiler itself written in
Cobol. Please don't flame me over the perceived stupidity of such a
choice, I think it is a better idea than a language that cannot compile
itself. I do believe obviously that there is enough power in the
language to implement a COBOL compiler using the COBOL language. After
all, a compiler is simply a program to translate text from a source into
a target. We're not talking rocket science or brain surgery here.
I believe there is money to be made with a good inexpensive Cobol
compiler which is available for several different targets, which would
allow applications to be used unchanged on different environments, such
as IBM Mainframe, DOS, Windows, Linux and others. Having done
maintenance on three other language compilers and written one from
scratch for Fortran in three months, I decided to focus on Cobol as I
think it is an underserved market and I think there is both room for
another product and sufficient market need to merit the time and effort
in developing one.
I am wondering if there was interest in such a thing. What I am
thinking about is something that did not require run-time licensing
fees, would not be hugely expensive as most Cobol compilers seem to be,
and by writing the compiler in Cobol itself, the people who use the
compiler, if they wanted an additional feature the compiler did not
supply, could write the code for it themselves if they chose to do so.
Oh yes, source code would be included as it has been long standing
policy that customers are entitled to be able to hire someone other than
the original development staff if they choose to do so or if it was no
longer possible to continue development. (Originally I wanted to write
"to hire someone not as good as the original development staff" in the
previous sentence but I decided I should be humble! I'm probably not
that good a programmer, and I'll probably get better as I get more
experience. I've only been doing programming for 24 years and I figure
I'll get better as I learn more.)
Perhaps I am misguided and there is no market or desire for such a
thing. I think there is, but I'd like to hear people's comments on
whether they would be interested in such a thing and how much
(seriously) it would be worth to them. I mean, if it is possible to
sell (nationally or worldwide) 10,000 copies at $100 each that's a huge
market. On the other hand it might be there's only interest for perhaps
500 copies of such an application in which case it would have to be more
expensive. Or I could be kidding myself that the market is saturated
and there really is no interest. I don't know enough to judge and I
don't have enough information to say. That's why I'm asking for comments.
There is also the issue that I may be pricing the product too high to be
worthwhile or that I'm pricing it so low that no one will take me
seriously. That is also why I'm trying to find out what people who
actually use Cobol (or would buy one for use in their shop) think such a
thing is worth. Obviously what I want to develop is something that is
so valuable to them for what is being charged that they both believe
they can't afford not to get it, and worry about buying it fast enough
before I come to our senses and raise the price on them. If that is the
case and I can make money off of it, it's a win-win situation for
everyone.
There is also the issue that if there is interest I am going to want to
ask some people to either send me some of the code they use or examples
of some so I can test it or to be willing to try compiling production
code against various releases of the compiler and inform me if they get
the same results as their current system, or what differences they
notice. I'll file specific notices when that happens in order to
solicit beta testers, but I'm curious if there is interest.
I'm also interested in two things: (1) what features do you find missing
in Cobol compilers or the programming environment that you wish were
available, (2) what would you want from a good quality Cobol compiler,
again with a view towards something you think is worth paying for.
Of course you can try to tell me that I'm making a huge mistake and it's
pointless for me to bother, in which case I'd like to know your reasons.
Paul Robinson
paul at code-compiler dot com
Remove NOSPAM from out of header for private e-mail replies if desired,
but I really am interested in newsgroup replies.
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