From: arne@vajhoej.dk

On 12/1/2025 8:37 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
> I've long suspected (but I admit I have no evidence to support
> this) that one of the reasons there is so much COBOL code in the
> world is because, when making non-trivial changes, programmers
> first _copy_ large sections of the program and then modify the
> copy, to avoid introducing bugs into existing functionality.

Copying and modifying code instead of creating reusable libraries
has been used by bad programmers in all languages.

But last century then Cobol and Basic were the two easiest
languages to learn and Cobol was one of the languages with
most jobs. So it seems likely that a large number of bad
programmers picked Cobol. Bringing bad habits with them.

Today I would expect that crowd to pick client side JavaScript
and server side PHP.

There is also something in the Cobol language.

Large files with one data division, lots of paragraphs
and lots of perform's is easy to code, but it is also
bad for reusable code.

It is sort of the same as having large C or Pascal files
with all variables global and all functions/procedures
without arguments.

It is possible to do it right, but when people have
to chose between the easy way and the right way, then ...

Arne

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