The status of Latin and COBOL are quite similar. Neither is really dead, both are deeply ingrained, intertwined and embedded in our contemporary world. The former in many of our written and spoken languages, and the latter is the underpinning of much of the world’s existing data systems. If you ignore Latin, you risk losing the ability to understand the derivation, and hence a full understanding, of many words in many modern languages. If you ignore COBOL, you run the risk of failing to understand how your enterprise actually works.
Latin really isn't a good comparison. COBOL is a dynamic language that is growing and evolving even today. Did you know that COBOL is OOP? That it's OOP is more OO than C++? Also, as someone who's coded in COBOL and many of the newer "sexy" languages, the assertion that the newer language developers will be 90% faster in development is a mistake. It's so much easier and quicker to code in modern COBOL than Java or C/C++.
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COBOL: The New Latin
Posted by: Lou Washington October 26, 2006 04:00 AMThe status of Latin and COBOL are quite similar. Neither is really dead, both are deeply ingrained, intertwined and embedded in our contemporary world. The former in many of our written and spoken languages, and the latter is the underpinning of much of the world’s existing data systems. If you ignore Latin, you risk losing the ability to understand the derivation, and hence a full understanding, of many words in many modern languages. If you ignore COBOL, you run the risk of failing to understand how your enterprise actually works.
Also, as someone who's coded in COBOL and many of the newer "sexy" languages, the assertion that the newer language developers will be 90% faster in development is a mistake. It's so much easier and quicker to code in modern COBOL than Java or C/C++.