COBOL turns 50

computerworld.com.au

13 points·Ben65··5 comments

In reality COBOL will be the 100 year language, it's halfway there.

I am finding humor in this link, because earlier today there was an article "Is Java Dead?" Why not an article "Is Cobol Dead?" probably because everyone assumes it already was dead, but in reality is still going and will be for another 50 years.

What people don’t understand is that languages of any kind don't die easily. New languages don't kill the old ones either, people transition to different languages because they better solve the problems of today, but problems of yesterday still exist and so do their solutions.

I generally assume that people who ask, "Is X dead?" or state, "X is dead" actually mean "dead" in the sense Paul Graham used in his essay about Microsoft:

> What I meant was not that Microsoft is suddenly going to stop making money, but that people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about them.

http://www.paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html

Which is a mix of arrogance and selective blindness unlikely to do that self-declared "leading edge" much good.

This is just a thinly veiled press release from Micro Focus, a COBOL vendor. They try to make these stories pop up every few months (why is still something I don't understand - it's not like they're going to ensnare someone and get them to learn or use COBOL if they read one of these PR fluff pieces), but they really should be ignored.

Fred Brooks' on COBOL's success: http://bit.ly/jrnXp

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