# cobol COBOL is a high-level, English-like, compiled programming language developed for business data processing. This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles. ## From COBOL to Copilot: 30 Years of Data, BI, and AI with David Langer DevFeed: [From COBOL to Copilot: 30 Years of Data, BI, and AI with David Langer]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Daniel Beach Published: 2026-07-01T13:43:11Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [Data Engineering Central]() Topics: [Artificial Intelligence](), [cobol](), [Data Science](), [mainframes](), [Software Engineering](), [AI Strategy](), [self-service](), [dashboards](), [jupyter notebooks]() Tags: [adoption](), [ai](), [business-intelligence](), [cobol](), [data-science](), [enterprise](), [jupyter-notebooks](), [mainframes](), [programming](), [self-service](), [semantic]() ### AI overview A podcast conversation with Dave Langer about nearly three decades spanning COBOL, enterprise architecture, business intelligence, analytics, data science, machine learning, and AI. It discusses persistent data-industry problems, self-service analytics, dimensional modeling, AI adoption, semantic layers, governance, and career advice for data professionals. ### Source excerpt What happens when someone who started programming on a Commodore 64 watches AI reshape the entire data industry? ## 7 Reasons Why CEOs Should Modernize their Software DevFeed: [7 Reasons Why CEOs Should Modernize their Software]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Aisling Foley Published: 2026-02-18T07:23:00Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Federico Tomassetti]() Topics: [Software](), [cobol](), [Visual Basic](), [SAS]() Tags: [cobol](), [financial-services](), [growth](), [integration](), [leadership](), [legacy](), [legacy-modernization](), [manufacturing](), [security](), [software]() ### AI overview This commentary argues that CEOs should modernize legacy software because systems that remain stable can still create strategic, regulatory, security, integration, and knowledge-retention risks. It discusses legacy systems used in manufacturing and financial services, including COBOL, RPG, Visual Basic 6, and SAS. ### Source excerpt Key Takeaways Legacy software is tolerated because, let's face it, it works, and works well. But that's no longer good enough. Nowadays, it limits an organisation's strategic options. Legacy software can slow down, or make strategic plans more expensive or complicated than they need to be. Whilst legacy software is considered stable, the real risk [...] The post 7 Reasons Why CEOs Should Modernize their Software appeared first on Federico Tomassetti. ## One more week to the Logic for Programmers Food Drive DevFeed: [One more week to the Logic for Programmers Food Drive]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Hillel Wayne Published: 2025-11-24T18:21:49Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Newsletter feed for Hillel Wayne's Newsletter]() Topics: [cobol](), [Math and Logic]() Tags: [article](), [charity](), [cobol]() ### AI overview A newsletter update promotes a charity fundraiser for Logic for Programmers and previews research into "wild goto" statements. It argues that BASIC had wild gotos, FORTRAN had tame gotos, and COBOL's ALTER statement could change a goto target at runtime. ### Source excerpt A couple of weeks ago I started a fundraiser for the Greater Chicago Food Depository: get Logic for Programmers 50% off and all the royalties will go to charity.1 Since then, we've raised a bit over $1600. Y'all are great! The fundraiser is going on until the end of November, so you still have one more week to get the book real cheap. I feel a bit weird about doing two newsletter adverts without raw content, so here's a teaser from a old project I really need to get back to. Notes on structured concurrency argues that old languages had a "old-testament fire-and-brimstone goto" that could send control flow anywhere, like from the body of one function into the body of another function. This "wild goto", the article claims, what Dijkstra was railing against in Go To Statement Considered Harmful, and that modern goto statements are much more limited, "tame" if you will, and wouldn't invoke Dijkstra's ire. I've shared this historical fact about Dijkstra many times, but recently two separate people have told me it doesn't makes sense: Dijkstra used ALGOL-60, which already had tame gotos. All of the problems he raises with goto hold even for tame ones, none are exclusive to wild gotos. So This got me looking to see which languages, if any, ever had the wild goto. I define this as any goto which lets you jump from outside to into a loop or function scope. Turns out, FORTRAN had tame gotos from the start, BASIC has wild gotos, and COBOL is a nonsense language intentionally designed to horrify me. I mean, look at this: The COBOL ALTER statement changes a goto's target at runtime. (Early COBOL has tame gotos but only on a technicality: there are no nested scopes in COBOL so no jumping from outside and into a nested scope.) Anyway I need to write up the full story (and complain about COBOL more) but this is pretty neat! Reminder, fundraiser here. Let's get it to 2k. Royalties are 80% so if you already have the book you get a bit more bang for your buck by donating to the GCFD d ## My surreal experience with COBOL DevFeed: [My surreal experience with COBOL]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2022-09-05T00:00:00Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Mutt0-ds Notes]() Topics: [cobol](), [legacy](), [ibm](), [Visual Studio Code](), [Code]() Tags: [cobol](), [ibm](), [legacy](), [personal](), [thought](), [visual-studio-code]() ### AI overview A personal account of learning COBOL through IBM's course for Visual Studio Code and other tutorials. It discusses COBOL's legacy use, distinctive syntax, maintainability challenges, stability, and the practical difficulty of setting up a development environment. ### Source excerpt I was feeling curious... So, I decided to challenge myself and try to learn a bit more about COmmon Business-Oriented Language aka COBOL,... ## COBOL and the Value of Maintaining Older Systems DevFeed: [COBOL and the Value of Maintaining Older Systems]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2020-09-21T07:10:51Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Lambda the Ultimate]() Topics: [cobol](), [Programming](), [systems]() Tags: [cobol](), [critiques](), [history](), [programming-languages](), [systems]() ### AI overview The article challenges the claim that COBOL programmers disappeared because their skills became obsolete. It argues that underinvestment in people and infrastructure displaced experienced programmers, while new COBOL programmers continue to be trained. It presents older systems as valuable and discusses the importance of studying the social, political, and economic forces shaping programming languages and technological systems. ### Source excerpt Mar Hicks. Built to Last. Logic. Issue 11, "Care". It was this austerity-driven lack of investment in people--rather than the handy fiction, peddled by state governments, that programmers with obsolete skills retired--that removed COBOL programmers years before this recent crisis. The reality is that there are plenty of new COBOL programmers out there who could do the job. In fact, the majority of people in the COBOL programmers' Facebook group are twenty-five to thirty-five-years-old, and the number of people being trained to program and maintain COBOL systems globally is only growing. Many people who work with COBOL graduated in the 1990s or 2000s and have spent most of their twenty-first century careers maintaining and programming COBOL systems... In this sense, COBOL and its scapegoating show us an important aspect of high tech that few in Silicon Valley, or in government, seem to understand. Older systems have value, and constantly building new technological systems for short-term profit at the expense of existing infrastructure is not progress. In fact, it is among the most regressive paths a society can take. Recently, work on the history of technology has been becoming increasingly more sophisticated and moved beyond telling the story of impressive technology to trying to unravel the social, political, and economic forces that affected the development, deployment, and use of a wide range of technologies and technological systems. Luckily, this trend is beginning to manifest itself in studies of the history of programming languages. While not replacing the need for careful, deeply informed, studies of the internal intellectual forces affecting the development of programming languages, these studies add a sorely needed aspect to the stories we tell.