Let the user choose (Score 0)

If the programmers and/or managers still think COBOL is useful, why not let them deploy its applications. If COBOL has survived it is only because it is relevant, or make easy to understand its legacy systems. It is well standardized by several organizations and have several commercial and free implementations. Compare for instance Java, which IS NOT standardized yet, have a few (SUN alone is the standard) implementation, and is a moving target!

If I would choose a language to port COBOL applications, I would prefer Common Lisp. That's because I like it. It gives me control and power. There are many things impossible to do in Java or C++ (and COBOL too) that's easy in CL (real macros anyone?).

Of course, for business applications, or better saying, for the junior programmers that are able to write COBOL or Java code for finnancial applications, Common Lisp is a nightmare with its complex concepts. For a seasoned programmer, there are, along with CL (Common Lisp), a handful of other interesting languages such as Ruby, Tcl, Python, and others.

But remember, there are tricks in COBOL that no other language (except CL, of course, that may implement the syntax you need) which features a MOVE (with type conversion according its PICTUREs), MOVE CORRESPONDING, a precision "money arithmetic", several verbs like INSPECT, STRING, etc. People get used to work with those features! That's why COBOL still lives and will live for much more time than you Java-only programmers (Java morons) expect.

In Brazil there's a saying "don't change a team that's winning".

BTW, I'm NOT a COBOL programmer, but I'm a proud implementor of TinyCOBOL (http://tinycobol.org/ or http://tiny-cobol.sourceforge.net/), a free (GPL, libraries LGPL) COBOL compiler that peaked 4,000 downloads/month. I prefer to write my code in Tcl, Common Lisp (including CLOS, its object system), Prolog, C (not C++, which is ugly), yacc/lex/ox (compiler tools), TeX, Postscript, Smalltalk, Forht (I've implemented a derivative of it called "Filia" in the early 70's), and othe less known animals...

Rildo Pragana -- "Adventures in Linux Programming" http://www.pragana.net/