TLDR: COBOL is a computer programming language designed for business use. It's been around since the late 1950s and is still used today in applications for companies and governments. COBOL is known for its English-like syntax and is primarily used in mainframe computers. It has gone through several revisions and is now standardized. Despite its declining popularity, COBOL is still widely used in maintaining existing applications.

COBOL, which stands for "common business-oriented language," is a programming language that was created in the late 1950s. It was designed to be used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. COBOL is an imperative, procedural, and object-oriented language.

One of the unique features of COBOL is its English-like syntax, which makes it easier for non-programmers to understand and read the code. However, this also makes the language quite verbose, with over 300 reserved words. COBOL code is organized into four divisions: identification, environment, data, and procedure.

COBOL was initially designed by a committee called CODASYL, with input from computer manufacturers and government agencies. It was based on the FLOW-MATIC programming language, which was created by Grace Hopper. The goal was to create a portable programming language for data processing.

Over the years, COBOL has gone through several revisions and updates. It has been standardized by organizations like ANSI and ISO/IEC. These standards have introduced new features and improvements to the language, such as support for structured and object-oriented programming.

Despite its declining popularity, COBOL is still widely used in applications deployed on mainframe computers. Many large financial institutions still develop new systems in COBOL. However, due to the retirement of experienced COBOL programmers, there is a growing trend of migrating COBOL applications to new platforms or rewriting them in modern languages.

In summary, COBOL is a programming language designed for business use. It has an English-like syntax and is primarily used in mainframe computers. Despite its declining popularity, COBOL is still widely used in maintaining existing applications.