Why Would Anyone Use COBOL Today?

According to the “Mythical Man-Month” a programmer is more productive in a concise, expressive, and powerful programming language and COBOL is quite the opposite. It is clumsy and verbose. At least, that’s what most people think.

I have written two books on iOS programming, one about Objective-C and the next one about Swift. A while ago, my publishing house called me and asked me whether I wanted unsold copies of my books for free. They couldn’t sell them anymore. Why?

One year after my book on Objective-C Apple introduced a new programming language called Swift. And nobody wanted to learn Objective-C anymore. I adapted my book to Swift. Then Apple introduced a new programming language, Swift 2.0. It was completely incompatible and automated conversion failed in most cases. Almost every existing code base had to be rewritten or adapted manually. Before it got published, I rewrote my book. Then Apple introduced Swift 3.0 which was another incompatible redesign of their programming language. Prompting more expensive rewrites. And making my second book obsolete.

On the other hand, take a COBOL program from 50 years ago. It still compiles and runs today. If the code needs to be modified or augmented it is because of business needs. It is a choice by the people working on the code, not a necessity mandated by the platform it runs on.

This is an immense business value. It may be more expensive to write in COBOL, but it also comes with a lower risk for your investment. Such an investment compounds over many decades during which many smarter technologies come and go.