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From: jgd@cix.co.uk (John Dallman)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: COBOL, Article on new mainframe use
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2024 19:21 +0100 (BST)
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In article <v9t3ih$2e8ee$1@dont-email.me>, OrangeFish@invalid.invalid
(OrangeFish) wrote:

> An interesting comment on the learning curve (and I know nothing 
> about COBOL) given the story that the language was created to allow 
> non-programmers to programme.

It doesn't require learning concepts that are strange to accountants or
bookkeepers. Just about all of its keywords are ordinary English words
being used in something like their normal sense. It's much easier for
business people to learn than assembler, which is what it was intended to
replace. 

However, it has a /lot/ of keywords and is generally verbose, the rules
on combining keywords are a bit weird, and it lacks "expressive power" -
trying to get it to deal with data types that aren't built into it is
kind of hard. I had a basic COBOL course at college in 1980-81, and
became quite clear that this wasn't what I wanted to do. 

John