Visual Studio 2010: COBOL in VS 2010, missing?

Question

Is it true that Visual Studio 2010 has now COBOL compiler inside?

I saw this in one article.

I also saw a video of it.

The question is, where can I find it? I've been searching VS2010 and still, no clues.

Thanks for answering.

Answer 1

There doesn't come a COBOL compiler with Visual Studio. It's probably just that it's installed on the lab computers where you found that page.¹ There is COBOL for .NET however and they talk about Visual Studio integration there too. It may be that there are others that integrate into VS too.

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¹ Similarly I don't assume that Windows comes with an Eiffel IDE, just because it's installed on our university's computers.

Answer 2

COBOL is not part of VS but included through an add-on. The install instructions can be found on the site you referenced at http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/compsci/docs/cobol.html

Answer 3

You need to have Micro Focus Visual COBOL. It adds those project types to the visual studio IDE.

Here is Another link to their products.

Answer 4

Hi,

I should start by pointing out that I work for Micro Focus and I'm responsible for the COBOL products so you could say I have a vested interest!

Micro Focus has had a COBOL for Visual Studio and supported managed .NET code since VS 2005 and .NET v1. The current product is called "Net Express with .NET" (OK, I know it's not a great name!). We've had a freely downloadable version for personal use but we've had to update it recently and the downloads have been suspended - should be back soon.

We've just announced our new Visual COBOL which is built on Visual Studio 2010. This is a really major update for our technology. Amongst other things, we had a review of the COBOL language to slim it down and make it much easier to use for .NET programming. Talking to some C# programmers recently they quickly understood the COBOL and could start working on the code with very little assistance. I'd better stop the promotion stuff! If you want more information, take a look at http://vs2010.microfocus.com.

A few other really useful sources of information if you're interested in COBOL with VS or .NET:

- CSharpCorner

- Code Project

In either site, just do a search for COBOL.

Answer 5

The Visual COBOL community is working on a Google 'knol' as a community web site about visual studio cobol. Please let us know if it can be improved, what other information you might want etc: http://knol.google.com/k/alex-turner/visual-studio-cobol/2246polgkyjfl/8#

Thanks - AJ