| COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) is a high-level programming language for business applications. It was the first popular language designed to be operating system-agnostic and is still in use in many financial and business applications today. Before COBOL, all operating systems had their own associated programming languages. COBOL was designed for business computer programs in industries such as finance and human resources. Unlike some high-level computer programming languages, COBOL uses English words and phrases to make it easier for ordinary business users to understand. The language was based on Rear Admiral Grace Hopper's 1940s work on the FLOW-MATIC programming language, which was also largely text-based. Today, COBOL is still commonly used at financial institutions and by government agencies. Even though the number of programmers with COBOL experience steadily decreases as those who learned COBOL while it was popular enter retirement age, COBOL is once again being taught in some universities -- this time to support application modernization and the DevOps movement. According to the TIOBE Index, which tracks the popularity of programming languages, COBOL was ranked twenty-fourth among the top fifty languages as of May 2019. The increased demand for COBOL programmers has led to increased compensation in this area and innovative training offers. Over the past decade, IBM has educated more than 150,000 developers on COBOL and mainframe skills through fellowships and training programs.
COBOL features
Popular features of COBOL include: Simplicity and standardization. COBOL is an easy-to-learn, standard language that can be compiled and executed on a variety of computers. It supports a wide syntax vocabulary and features an uncluttered coding style. Business-oriented capabilities. COBOL's advanced file handling capabilities enable it to handle huge volumes of data. COBOL still handles more than 70% of the world's business transactions. COBOL is suited for everything from simple batch reporting to complex transactions. Universality. COBOL has adapted to six decades of business change and works across numerous platforms and devices. The language offers debugging and testing tools for almost all computer platforms, and new COBOL products, compilers and development tools continue to be announced every year. Structure and scalability. The logical control structures available in COBOL make it easy to read, modify and debug. COBOL is also scalable, reliable and portable across platforms. COBOL in the cloud For applications written in COBOL, the cloud offers another platform for rapid deployment and modernization. Because COBOL is both adaptive and highly portable enabling, most COBOL systems can be quickly re-deployed to a virtual or cloud platform with no change. COBOL’s inherent design, its highly adaptable nature and the commitment from industry vendors such as Micro Focus and IBM have made this possible. COBOL's support for containers adds even greater portability for application development, testing and deployment across a hybrid IT deployment. | 
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