Cobol turns 50

It's been 50 years since Grace Hopper developed Cobol, a programming language that still remains in use across government. Still, Cobol--which stands for Common Business-Oriented Language--exists at many federal agencies, despite being superseded by other more modern languages like Java.

Key among the agencies that still depend on Cobol are the Social Security Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Postal Service, the Army and the State Department.

"The fact is that for back-end computations, nothing is better than Cobol," Bill Gray, deputy commissioner for systems at the Social Security Administration, told Federal Computer Week.

Despite all of this, the future for Cobol remains risky. Agencies could find a shortage of experienced Cobol programs in the next few years as federal experts in the language begin to retire; Cobol is no longer being taught as heavily at the university level as in previous years.

For more on Cobol:
- check out this Federal Computer Week article