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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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Programming
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I always wonder if I should just learn COBOL and try to just do a few juicy contracts a year and focus on my other pursuits (farming and considering making a game, as well as vacation of course) the rest of the year.
Eevee's heteroglot entry for COBOL is interesting, coming from … practically anything else.
There's also someone doing AOC in ABAP (basically SAP COBOL) who posts over in the AOC subreddit. I've looked at them and ... mhm, I know some of these words!
I've fallen down the rabbithole. I'm reading a free course (from 2001ish) on Cobol.
I now question everything. I mean, technically, basically anything is maintainable in that it's possible...
COBOL also can work with all modern day components. Like odbc/SQL etc...
I mean, the fact that more than half-century-old COBOL continues to be maintained does speak to the fact that it is maintainable. That might also be part of what makes COBOL painful to the average developer: You're not only dealing with a language that first appeared in 1959, designed for machines that were very different than modern computers; you're also dealing with over a half century of legacy code, including all that means for Hyrum's law.
Unfortunately maintainable and pleasant to work with are rather distinct concepts.
Just remember the Voyager spacecraft are still out there... and being maintained.