COBOL (, an
acronym for
common
business-
oriented
language) is a
compiled English-like
computer programming language designed for business use. It is
imperative,
procedural and, since 2002,
object-oriented. COBOL is primarily used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. COBOL is still widely used in legacy applications deployed on
mainframe computers, such as large-scale
batch and
transaction processing jobs. But due to its declining popularity and the retirement of experienced COBOL programmers, programs are being migrated to new platforms, rewritten in modern languages or replaced with software packages. Most programming in COBOL is now purely to maintain existing applications.