The challenges organizations face with legacy systems are not in fact a result of COBOL, or any other programming language; the language is just a syntax for expressing business rules. A programming language like any other which anyone can learn.
So why are so many organizations – including the state governments of New Jersey, Kansas, Connecticut and Colorado – experiencing such issues with legacy applications written in COBOL? I argue that the problem is not with COBOL itself, but with the arcane mainframe environment the programmers must inhabit to maintain the programs.
