| I actually have used it, and I'd recommend that you steer clear. About twelve years ago, I had to translate 30k lines of Micro Focus COBOL into Delphi (object-oriented Pascal). It ran on Solaris and relied heavily on memory-mapped files (it called mmap() through an FFI). While I got the project done, it was a nightmare to work with. Why? - Most COBOL programs generally use global variables everywhere. I suppose that some newer dialects exist that allow you to limit variable scope slightly, but that doesn't really help because no one writes new COBOL programs anymore. - Want to install the compiler? Call our support line. (They probably thought that leaving bugs in their installer constituted some sort of anti-piracy measure.) - Want to define a function? No problem! Just open a new file and type half a page of boilerplate code. - Want to recompile even a simple COBOL program? No problem! Just wait a minute! - Want to recompile a moderately-sized COBOL program (30k lines)? No problem! Just wait five minutes! - Want to buy a COBOL compiler for Solaris? That'll be $2995 for a single-seat development license. Don't even think about trying to run the resulting binary in anything like a production environment because that costs many tens of thousands more. (Maybe you're thinking that you'll just use a competing company's compiler. Well, you thought wrong! On the platform I was stuck with, Micro Focus was the only game in town.) - Put COBOL on your resume, and people will rightly think less of you. I will think less of you. We live in a golden era, where you can do almost anything you want. We have gobs of RAM, lots of cores, fast internet connections, great programming languages, etc. -- all things that were barely imaginable to the brightest minds of 50 years ago. Why saddle yourself with the language of that generation's dullest minds? tl;dr: Please, just let this stinking heap of a language die! |