COBOL, Live and Kicking

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Contrary to what many believe, COBOL is not dead *shudder*. Apparently, code written for this beast of a programming language is too valuable to be discarded, and according to Micro Focus' survey, it still tops the chart as the programming language of choice in Mainframes.

According to preliminary results of Micro Focus' survey of 750 mainframers in the U.S. and Canada, 41% name COBOL as a principal programming language by an approximate 25% margin over Java, the next most popular language. Preliminary results also find 52% of mainframe applications are still written in COBOL.

What's hot as a mainframer is not just the ability to write COBOL code but also to be able to integrate it with newer frameworks such as .NET, J2EE etc. Universities have begun to include COBOL in their syllabus.

COBOL skills needed in the future