Did COBOL's Design Prioritize Readability Over Efficiency?

💡 The Answer

• COBOL was created in 1959 to be easily understood by managers and auditors, not just programmers.
• Its syntax uses full English words like 'ADD A TO B' instead of cryptic symbols.
• This readability came at the cost of verbosity, making programs longer than equivalent assembly or C.
• Despite that, COBOL remains vital in financial systems due to its reliability and legacy codebase.
• Modern COBOL compilers can optimize the code significantly, mitigating efficiency concerns.
• The language's design philosophy influenced later business-oriented languages.