COBOL: 10 Reasons the Old Language Is Still Kicking

by Darryl K. Taft

Learning COBOL isn’t like learning a completely new language: It’s English. It consists of English-like structural components such as verbs, clauses and sentences.

COBOL has been ported to virtually every hardware platform.

COBOL will work tomorrow as well as it does today: Businesses already using COBOL are likely to continue to use it rather than replace it.

COBOL’s numeric processing functions make it a good choice for applications where the tiniest fractional rounding error can make a crucial difference.

Developers can use COBOL with their favorite IDE. There’s no need to worry about learning a new toolset. You can develop COBOL applications using Visual Studio or Eclipse.

COBOL systems use indexed data files that maintain internal B-tree structures, providing rapid access to data even when data stores run into terabytes.

COBOL does not require the same level of commenting as other languages, which helps to make maintaining someone else’s COBOL code easier.

COBOL has more than 50 years of optimizations under its belt, so it has good performance.

By combining COBOL skills with systems in use today, you can enhance existing COBOL applications in the Web, mobile and cloud.

We are surrounded by COBOL: It runs over 70 percent of the world’s business transactions. It makes sense to replenish the supply of COBOL programmers by training new ones.