COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) has a storied history, dating back to its inception in 1959. Its purpose was clear from the start: to create a language that could be used by businesses for large-scale data processing. And by any measure, COBOL has been a success. According to Nathan Ensmenger in his book The Computer Boys Take Over, “anecdotal evidence suggests that it (COBOL) is by far the most popular and widely used computer language ever.”
Sixty-five years after its birth, many assume that a language developed in the early days of computing is obsolete, yet COBOL remains a key player in many mission-critical systems today. So, why does COBOL continue to persist, and what does its future look like in an era of AI, cloud computing, and modern development frameworks?
COBOL’s Deep-Rooted Legacy
COBOL’s design emphasized clarity and readability, making it ideal for its original use case, which was to support business transactions. Over the decades, COBOL’s adoption grew to such an extent that by the 1970s and 1980s, COBOL-powered mainframes became the backbone of industries like banking, insurance, government, and retail.
These systems run core applications and many organizations still rely on COBOL to power their daily business processes. And these COBOL applications represent a very large code base. Various reports over the past decade have pegged the lines of COBOL code in active use worldwide between 220 billion and 800 billion. Of course, nobody actually went out and counted lines of code, but suffice it to say, the industry of the world is built on the back of COBOL applications! This COBOL code represents not just historical inertia, but an ongoing need for its functionality, reliability, and efficiency in handling transactional workloads.
Indeed, when raising the topic of COBOL, some IT folks say “is that still around?” Which is telling, because yes, it is still around. And it is running so quietly and effectively that many are blissfully unaware that they are interacting with COBOL systems on a daily basis, such as when checking your bank balance, or making a purchase, or booking travel. COBOL remains the backbone of business.
The Problem of Rewriting and Replacing COBOL Systems
Given the age of COBOL, one might wonder why organizations don’t simply replace their COBOL systems with modern languages or platforms. The reality is far more complicated. COBOL applications, especially in industries like banking or government, are deeply embedded in processes that have been refined over decades. These applications process billions of transactions daily and support critical infrastructure, making the cost of rewriting or replacing them daunting. Not even to mention that most application rewrites fail the first time they are attempted.
Migration projects are often risky, time-consuming, and expensive. COBOL systems are stable, and modernizing them typically involves a level of complexity far beyond just porting code to a new language. The business logic encoded in COBOL over years and decades has evolved to be finely tuned for the environments they serve.
Moreover, COBOL’s structured nature lends itself well to processing large amounts of transactional data—something modern languages, optimized for web or app development, may not handle as efficiently. Consequently, many organizations find it more practical to maintain and modernize their COBOL systems incrementally, often integrating with modern technologies via APIs or cloud platforms, than to attempt wholesale rewrites.
COBOL’s Adaptability to Modern IT Environments
Contrary to popular belief, COBOL isn’t frozen in time. Over the years, COBOL has evolved to adapt to new environments. In recent versions, COBOL compilers support modern development tools and architectures, such as containerization, microservices, and cloud-native environments. COBOL can even support object-oriented development.
Furthermore, COBOL can be effectively integrated into modern DevOps practices, bridging the gap between traditional mainframe systems and agile development workflows. By leveraging tools such as Jenkins, Git, and modern COBOL compilers that support continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), organizations can incorporate COBOL into automated pipelines, ensuring rapid development and deployment cycles. COBOL’s compatibility with APIs and its ability to integrate with microservices architectures further enable DevOps teams to modernize and extend existing COBOL applications without rewriting them from scratch.
This integration and on-going modernization helps enterprises accelerate innovation with COBOL as a part of hybrid cloud strategies, while maintaining the stability and reliability of COBOL-based systems with the flexibility to operate in both on-premise and cloud settings.
Furthermore, COBOL’s compatibility with database management systems like Db2, the availability of COBOL compilers for Linux environments, and the ability to run COBOL workloads on z/OS as well as on distributed systems make it a viable option in the modern IT landscape. COBOL applications are often used alongside other programming languages in multi-language ecosystems. For example, Java or Python might be used for front-end or customer-facing applications, while COBOL processes back-end transactions.
COBOL Talent Shortage: A Challenge but Not a Crisis
One of the concerns often cited about COBOL is the perceived shortage of COBOL programmers. Many original COBOL developers are retiring, raising fears of a skills gap. While it’s true that younger developers often focus on languages like Python, JavaScript, or Java, it is not difficult to teach COBOL. Numerous educational institutions and online courses still offer COBOL training, and some organizations have successfully launched internal COBOL academies to develop the next generation of COBOL programmers.
This should come as no surprise to any COBOL enthusiast. When I first entered the workforce, I had freshly earned a Computer Science degree that did not require knowledge of COBOL. But COBOL’s English-like syntax is one of its key strengths, making it easy to learn, especially for those new to programming. Unlike many modern languages that use complex symbols and abstractions, COBOL’s commands are structured using straightforward, descriptive keywords like READ, WRITE, IF, andPERFORM, which are everyday English phrases. This design was intentional, aiming to make the language accessible to non-programmers, such as business professionals and data clerks, when it was first developed. For example, everybody reading this should be able to understand the following COBOL statement:
SUBTRACT VARIABLE1 FROM VARIABLE2.
Of course, this is just one small example, but it helps to prove the point that COBOL’s readability allows new learners to quickly grasp its logic and flow. This makes COBOL an approachable language for those needing to work on business-critical applications without getting bogged down by complicated syntax. So, it always confuses me a bit when people claim that there are no more COBOL programmers; or that it is too hard to train new COBOL programmers.
At its core, COBOL relies on the following three functions:
- sequence – COBOL is a sequential language, where each statement is processed sequentially using sections, paragraphs, and sentences.
- selection – statements that enable selecting a specific course of action, such as IF THEN ELSE and EVALUATE, allow for selected actions to be processed.
- iteration – looping and performing an action multiple times is possible using statements like PERFORM UNTIL.
Most COBOL programs use these three concepts to perform business processes and transactions, from the simple to the inredibly complex.
Additionally, modern integrated development environments (IDEs) and debugging tools have made COBOL development more accessible and familiar to those used to working with contemporary languages. New tools and modernization efforts help to bridge the gap between old and new, allowing COBOL to coexist with modern technologies.
The Future of COBOL
So, what does the future hold for COBOL? While no one can predict how long COBOL will continue to dominate certain sectors, its enduring presence suggests that it will remain viable for years to come. The cost, complexity, and risk of replacing COBOL systems mean that businesses will continue to rely on them, especially where stability, security, and performance are paramount. I mean, just think about the cost of trying to convert billions of lines of existing code, or re-writing COBOL systems from scratch in other programming languages.
The introduction of COBOL into cloud-based architectures, along with ongoing modernization efforts, points to a future where COBOL continues to evolve alongside newer technologies. COBOL systems will likely persist, augmented by modern tools that allow them to be maintained, extended, and integrated with contemporary IT ecosystems.
Conclusion
COBOL may not be the language of choice for most new applications, but it is far from obsolete. Its ongoing viability in modern IT stems from its reliability, scalability, and ability to handle vast amounts of transactional data. As businesses continue to evolve, so too will COBOL, making it a language that is poised to remain relevant for many years to come.
In the words of many who work in enterprise IT, if it isn’t broken, why fix it?
For COBOL, that sentiment likely helps to explain its remarkable longevity.
