20 engineers on Hacker News describe using COBOL first-hand: 0 endorse it, 4 regret it, 4 are mixed.
“Much of the infrastructure we use is closer to 60 years old and cobbled together with tinkertoys, COBOL, and chewing gum”
regret · production · cykros · 2026-10-26 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I was paid to throw COBOL in the late 1970's, and I would bag fries before I'd do it again.”
regret · production · jerhewet · 2023-09-12 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I had COBOL as one of the subjects during my engineering course in the early '90s in India. Absolutely hated it.”
regret · personal · vivegi · 2022-09-13 · source ↗ · wrong label?“you can basically not touch your code for decades and it'll still run fine... expensive/hard technical debt”
mixed · production · leokennis · 2020-08-20 · source ↗ · wrong label?“dislike others (RPG III, COBOL, perl)”
regret · personal · wglb · 2018-11-27 · source ↗ · wrong label?“anything in COBOL. But that is what I said before I had to program in RPG III for about a year then discovered COBOL was not so bad.”
mixed · production · wglb · 2017-05-13 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Logic in the perform/goto world quickly spirals out of control/comprehension”
mixed · production · marktangotango · 2015-07-15 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I work for a large financial firm doing COBOL work right now. The language itself isn't that bad. There are a lot of quirks given how old it is”
mixed · production · zcdziura · 2015-07-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“the most experienced Cobol programmer in the team”
neutral · production · YeGoblynQueenne · 2026-05-18 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Mainly writing in COBOL and Java (in USS), with some scripting in Rexx”
neutral · production · hnurl · 2025-07-18 · source ↗ · wrong label?“My limited COBOL experience was while working for a Mainframe software vender.”
neutral · production · jareds · 2023-11-16 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We used to write COBOL using thin client on mainframes. Then we moved to development locally.”
neutral · production · exabrial · 2021-08-11 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We replaced COBOL code... With more COBOL. ... nothing can really replace it without unacceptable downtime or performance regressions.”
neutral · production · shakna · 2017-11-13 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I was documenting COBOL systems, sitting in disaster recovery planning meetings, all kinds of megacorp stuff”
neutral · production · manyxcxi · 2016-06-08 · source ↗ · wrong label?“We run a settlement/clearing system for payment processing, which is a zOS/UniKix/COBOL/JCL kind of system.”
neutral · production · oldprogrammer2 · 2016-05-18 · source ↗ · wrong label?“My employer actually still uses HP 3000 COBOL, even though the HP 3000 boxes are long gone.”
neutral · production · kyllo · 2015-07-15 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I switched the coding from COBOL to VB4 and Oracle and then Java”
neutral · production · kpgraham · 2015-05-06 · source ↗ · wrong label?“I did, working part-time at a bank during college... many of my coworkers spent 3+ years entirely on COBOL.”
neutral · production · Jare · 2013-05-27 · source ↗ · wrong label?“Yes we use RPG, occasional COBOL is around, and CL is the wrapper.”
neutral · production · Shivetya · 2013-01-15 · source ↗ · wrong label?“As a 25-year professional z/os programmer working primarily in COBOL and CICS”
neutral · production · 25 yr · masterponomo · 2010-08-02 · source ↗ · wrong label?