We spend a lot of time standardizing syntax and semantics. And that’s okay as far as it goes. But the best syntax in the world won’t help you do large-scale projects (admittedly, a bad syntax will cripple them, and I think that has been demonstrated, repeatedly).  Everybody has custom tools, every big project I’ve been on has done a lot of work around tools that was not transportable to anywhere else (or only with extreme effort).  This is like making your skyscraper with custom cement trucks, then tossing them because they ran on Malaysian Cocoanut Oil (”Hey, we were in a hurry, and we had a lot of it lying around…”) and doing the next building with trucks fueled with WWII surplus camo paint (”Hey, it was cheap….”).

[By the way, can you turn off all that "Hey, I compiled 1280 bytes of code and 128 bytes of data, with 193 bytes of other wazoo that I know you don't give a flying hiccup about, but I did it, I did it proud, and I just wanted you to know." ... I'm sure you can. But the last COBOL I typed any code into was just unbelievably miserable...]

d:\>type p.cbl
display “Hello World”.

d:\>rem… okay dude.. lets compile/link it…
d:\>cbllink p.cbl
Micro Focus Net Express – CBLLINK utility
Version 5.001.0056 Copyright (C) 1984-2007 Micro Focus (IP) Limited.

Micro Focus Net Express V5
Version 5.001.0056 Copyright (C) 1984-2007 Micro Focus (IP) Limited.
URN AXCGG/AA0/00000
* Checking complete with no errors – starting code generation
* Generating p
* Data: 720 Code: 456 Literals: 128
Microsoft (R) Incremental Linker Version 8.00.50727.762
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

p.obj
cbllds00001BDC.obj
Creating library p.lib and object p.exp

d:\>p
Hello World

d:\>rem dude that was really hard todo!

d:\>cd tmp

d:\tmp>rem Okay.. lets write something that interop’s with COBOL…
d:\tmp>rem … here’s come C code…

d:\tmp>type x.c
int main()
{
printf(”Okay.. let’s interact with COBOL!\n”);
P();
}

d:\tmp>cobol p.cbl omf(obj);
Micro Focus Net Express V5
Version 5.001.0056 Copyright (C) 1984-2007 Micro Focus (IP) Limited.
URN AXCGG/AA0/00000
* Checking complete with no errors – starting code generation
* Generating p
* Data: 720 Code: 456 Literals: 128

d:\tmp>cl -MD x.c -link p.obj cblrtsmi.lib
Microsoft (R) 32-bit C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 14.00.50727.762 for 80×86

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

x.c
Microsoft (R) Incremental Linker Version 8.00.50727.762
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

/out:x.exe
p.obj
cblrtsmi.lib
x.obj
Creating library x.lib and object x.exp

d:\tmp>x
Okay.. let’s interact with COBOL!
Hello World

d:\tmp>rem so… COBOL is simple and interops with a load of stuff.. it supports COM, COM+, Java, OO, .NET, WinForms, WebForms, SOAP, XML. Web Service…