# COBOL

17 Hacker News commenters recommended COBOL and 19 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend COBOL for reliable batch processing of business data and its readable, English-like syntax. Critics say its goto statements and unions make code hard to follow.

## Why people recommend it

- Reliable and battle tested (3 comments): "There's nothing that comes close to the level of reliability that these offer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46113441)) "It works and its battle tested." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48377822)) "COBOL systems work precisely because no one is constantly tinkering with them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113794))
- Readable, English-like syntax (2 comments): "COBOL is a beautiful language, one of the most human readable ones we've ever had." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46401523)) "it's readable and has an easy to understand English-like syntax" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48115999))
- Handles batch processing of business data (2 comments): "it handles well its use case, batch processing business data" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49622152)) "COBOL was supposed to be a programming language for business critters." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48230818))
- Modern standard with current tooling (2 comments): "COBOL is now in ISO 2023, even has OOP features, there are ways to do microservices in it, and nice modern IDEs as well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49905444)) "job security, it is a compiled language, standard is still ongoing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49919628))

## What people warn about

- Seen as old and outdated (3 comments): "Objective-C has joined Cobol in the category of zombie languages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46846195)) "Cobol is old like a steam locomotive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46320218)) "They do rely on something that sounds like a COBOL mainframe from 40 years ago to me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50058468))
- Goto and unions hard to follow (2 comments): "Cobol also has goto statementsv and unions, which lend themselves to really hard to follow code." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45817759)) "Cobol has its 10 000 line single program functions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49357094))
- Verbose, unnatural English-like style (2 comments): "They're both based on the outdated idea that a programming language should look like pidgin English rather than math." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46053591)) "most attempts to be "more natural language like", such as COBOL or AppleScript, do become worse" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50208276))
- Career lock-in and hard migration (3 comments): "Now we are stuck with COBOL and systems that are hard to migrate without damaging the economy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45988744)) "Its carrier suicide if you want to ever do anything else again after that gig." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49165847)) "I would definitely not suggest COBOL or MUMPS to a 20 year old, but as a niche for a 30 year old for a stable gig?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48987824))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend
- [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend
- [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend
- [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend
- [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "COBOL", https://hackerapproved.com/p/cobol/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).