Some say COBOL and Mainframe programming are a dying art. I’ve decided to take a course to find out for myself. There have been plenty of memes about COBOL lately.
Is COBOL dying, and why should we learn it today? COBOL is a significant piece of computer history. How old? 1959 was the year of release. So, 64 years old in 2023. It is the result of the US Department of Defense’s work in the late 1950s. Many businesses and government offices still use COBOL today.
COBOL is flexible and reliable. This is why banks rely on the language. It is easy to learn and maintain. COBOL is English-like in structure. It contains components such as verbs, clauses, and sentences. COBOL can be developed on familiar IDEs (Integrated Software Environments) such as Eclipse and Visual Studio.
I think that the panic at the start of COVID-19 had a lot to with the recent spotlight on this historic language. In the early stages of the lockdown, SHRM.org published an article that said:
“Sites are crashing, and it’s hard to find people familiar with the 60-year-old computer language known as COBOL…”
“Desperate Need for COBOL Programmers During COVID-19 Underlines Importance of Workforce Planning (shrm.org)“, April 9, 2020
Your first question may be, what does COBOL stand for? It stands for Common Business Oriented Language. Well, what the heck does that mean? It’s actually an English-like computer programming language. A language designed for business use. Companies and governments use COBOL in business, finance, and administrative systems.
So, having studied C++, Java, Python, JavaScript, and Assembly in college, why not try COBOL? History is fascinating. Plus, there are going to be shoes to fill. Here are some fascinating statistics on the Micro Focus website:
Learn COBOL | Micro Focus COBOL Academic Program
- 70% of daily business transactions are COBOL.
- 200x more transactions than Google and YouTube combined.
Micro Focus is a British multinational software and information technology business. It is now part of OpenText and commissioned the global, independent market survey.
COBOL is one of the first high level languages. The syntax is simple and allows non-programmers the ability to read it. The language is also object oriented. I look forward to programming with it.
And so we begin…
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