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Micro Focus Announces Winner of Global COBOL Coding Contest

Micro Focus Announces Winner of Global COBOL Coding Contest

Students and community developers use COBOL to design and develop video games

Micro Focus (LSE: MCRO.L), a leading provider of enterprise application modernisation, testing and management solutions, today announced Marco Cavanna, a community developer from Italy, as the winner of its Global COBOL Coding Contest. Student and community developers across the world were challenged to design and develop a video game program using Micro Focus’ Visual COBOL Personal Edition, in a bid to win a cash prize of $1,000, an iPad Mini and other great prizes.

The contest, which ran from 7 October to 17 December 2013, asked contestants to create a video game, using at least 50% Visual COBOL. Cavanna created a modernized Visual COBOL version of the arcade classic computer game, Snake. Using COBOL at the heart of the game, he has produced one of the world’s first 3D graphics gaming engines in COBOL.

Competition entries were judged by Micro Focus on a number of criteria including creativity, functionality, capability, experience and core technology requirements. Winners of the COBOL Code Contest include:

First Prize: A modernized Visual COBOL version of Snake, by Marco Cavanna, from Italy

Second Prize: A modernized Visual COBOL version of Black Jack, by Ahmed Alamar, from USA

Ahmed recreated the look and feel of the card table, with an overlay of playing cards and an endless supply of money

Joint Third Prize: Modernized Visual COBOL versions of the classic games, Minefield, by Antonio Joao and Towers of Hanoi, by Braulio Fidellis, both from Brazil

Antonio localized and created icons and graphics by hand to give his game a Brazilian twist Braulio wrote his game application to demonstrate the versatility and accuracy of COBOL

“We wanted our Global Code Contest to highlight the flexibility and simplicity of today’s COBOL technology,” said Ed Airey, product marketing director for COBOL Solutions at Micro Focus. “Although COBOL is far from synonymous with video games, the entrants have demonstrated the innovative and versatile nature of the language. Interestingly, all contestants chose to use 100% COBOL, highlighting its unrivalled ease of use, and Cavanna’s game stood out as it showcases what is possible through modern COBOL capability.”

Commenting on the value of COBOL, Kevin Brearley, director of product management at Micro Focus, added: “COBOL currently supports 90% of Fortune 500 business systems and many organizations will continue to use it for decades to come. It’s therefore vital to encourage, train and support the next generation of COBOL developers. Our contest demonstrates how simply and efficiently people can learn COBOL and how proficient Visual COBOL can be in delivering innovation by enhancing existing applications.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Micro Focus .