cross-posted from: https://lemmy.cringecollective.io/post/9716
Maybe some ALGOL 58 while we’re at it too.
COBOL is actually not that bad. It can work with SQL, it can have unit testing/integration testing. It can even go on the web (LOL).
But in all seriousness, the bad part about COBOL is lack of context. Most code that is in COBOL has not been touched in decades. And no one is willing to modify because of serous consequences (AKA job ruining errors) that can occur.
I worked with it in insurance and transportation. In both cases, the COBOL was actually pretty solid…but we didnt know WHY we were doing the operations.
the old languages still have their fans – and COBOL, Fortran, Ada, and Lisp are still holding strong in their respective niches
I took a principles of programming languages course a while back and got to touch on a lot of these old languages. My professor had huge hard-on for Lisp. Don’t get me wrong. The simplicity of the language is admirable. But reading and parsing that shit gave me headaches. No me gusta.
