Why COBOL Developers Prefer Writing Tests in Java
COBOL developers preferred writing unit tests in Java. Szymon Wałachowski and Bartosz Filipek built the bridge.
"The ultimate goal is to make people's life easier." - Bartosz Filipek
What happens when 40 years of custom decisions stack so high that even the standard testing tools from your own vendor stop working? With Bartosz Filipek and Szymon Wałachowski I talk about exactly that situation: a mainframe environment so deep in its own customization that the only way forward was to build one final bridge to the outside world. We dig into how they created a Java-based unit testing tool for COBOL developers, and what surprised me most is that COBOL programmers find it easier to write assertions in Java than in their own first language. We also get into code coverage, integration with tools like SonarQube and X-ray, and the long road of getting something as basic as a service account approved.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:05 Forty Years of Customization
00:05:23 When One Block Goes Missing
00:08:37 Building the Final Customization
00:11:33 Writing COBOL Tests in Java
00:17:44 Code Coverage on the Mainframe
00:19:57 Vision for Easier Testing
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🎯 Highlights:
Building one final, well-designed customization layer that bridges a legacy environment to standard tooling is more sustainable than letting ad-hoc customizations accumulate indefinitely.
COBOL developers found it easier to write unit test assertions in Java than in COBOL itself, because the Java API was designed so that no prior Java knowledge is required.
When a unit testing capability is missing in a legacy stack, the absence cascades: reporting, release validation, and integration with tools like SonarQube and X-Ray all become blocked as a consequence.
Code coverage for COBOL programs is technically achievable through the IBM debugger's built-in line-tracking option, without requiring a custom implementation.
🔗 Links
Blog Post for Episode: https://www.richard-seidl.com/en/podc...
Testwarez Conference: https://testwarez.pl/
🎙️ More from Richard Seidl
Website: https://www.richard-seidl.com
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