Everyone bash Cobol since the dawn of microcomputing, but the definition of a "Data Division" section where all data is specified before literally any actual line of code is something very interesting.
This language implementation mostly made the Y2K transition so sucessful, and today these Fortune 500 companies are still stuck with their legacy systems which were written by people "with a clue" back then.
Cobol is interesting, but horrifically impractical in practice. Cobol is my bugbear language... I just couldn't solve problems in it. It somehow separates what should go together and puts together what is unrelated.
This language implementation mostly made the Y2K transition so sucessful, and today these Fortune 500 companies are still stuck with their legacy systems which were written by people "with a clue" back then.
But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it.