To be fair, afaik (second hand account), when COBOL appeared it drove a bunch of non-expert programmers into the field, mostly domain-driven people. It really w

To be fair, afaik (second hand account), when COBOL appeared it drove a bunch of non-expert programmers into the field, mostly domain-driven people. It really was a new age of programming. (which then-experts didn't really see in a positive light) Episode of Command Line Heroes by Red Hat about COBOL: https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-3/the-infrastructure-effect https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-3/the-i... I think it's a little unfair to characterize COBOL as a failure in that regard. It tremendously increased the accessibility and use of programming and computing in general by way of consequence; it's been instrumental in allowing the programmer population to grow massively. Granted, extraordinary superlative claims never materialize, but the intent, the vision is important ime. Especially in business settings.