[chimeracoder]

COBOL is like bedbugs. Nobody likes COBOL; the reason it sticks around is because it's damn near impossible to get rid of.

COBOL is very hard to migrate out of production because it's incredibly difficult to translate COBOL code to other languages. Everyone writes their own version of their COBOL, and even translating one COBOL program to another COBOL programmer's "dialect" is non-trivial. COBOL provides all the power of LISP macros, except with none of the elegance - it's very hideous once you peel back the layers.

On the other hand, it's very easy to translate Go to/from other C-family languages. Indeed, there was a blog post recently on here about a company that translated their entire Python codebase line-for-line into Go. The Go team is even working on an automatic translator to translate the current gc compiler codebase (written in C) into Go.

I've used Go as my primary language for almost two years now. I wouldn't say I "love" Go - I love the things it lets me do. If Go is going to achieve the same level of dominance that Java has, and the same level of persistence that COBOL has, it's not going to be because it's got the ultimate form of lock-in (legacy code) - it's going to be because it continues to let people do powerful things very simply.

[3am]

Funny you mention it... almost replied to the post earlier saying that if I were to bet my career on a single language it would certainly be COBOL. Not glamorous, but it runs critical infrastructure and schools aren't exactly pumping out mainframe programmers.

That said, I have not and would not recommend betting on a single language. Being polyglot has its own advantages.

edit: any ideas for a first project with Go? Any place it's particularly well suited for?

edit: I re-emphasize my 2nd paragraph, "I have not and would not recommend betting on a single language"

[TheCoelacanth]

I don't think that's a very good bet. There is still a lot of COBOL sticking around, but there are essentially zero new COBOL projects being started while there are a non-zero number of COBOL projects being replaced with other languages, so COBOL use is ultimately trending downward. You are essentially betting that COBOL developers die out faster than COBOL itself does.

[dragonwriter]

> COBOL is like bedbugs. Nobody likes COBOL; the reason it sticks around is because it's damn near impossible to get rid of.

The reason it sticks around is because lots of enterprises either have mission critical code that works well in it and still has the same requirements (leaving no reason to replace it) -- or because poorly documented and tightly coupled code-bases makes it impossible to smoothly transition to something new. Often a combination of the two.