Overview

COBOL

Stacks130

Followers147

Votes2

Kotlin

Stacks17.7K

Followers11.9K

Votes650

GitHub Stars51.5K

Forks6.1K

COBOL vs Kotlin: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this comparison, we will highlight the key differences between COBOL and Kotlin, two programming languages with distinct characteristics and uses.

Basic Syntax: COBOL, being an older language, has a more verbose syntax compared to Kotlin. Kotlin, on the other hand, is known for its concise and expressive syntax, making it easier to read and write code more efficiently.
Object-Oriented Programming: While both COBOL and Kotlin support object-oriented programming paradigms, Kotlin is a modern language designed with full support for object-oriented and functional programming, offering more flexibility and modern language features.
Platform Compatibility: COBOL is typically used in mainframe systems and legacy applications, while Kotlin is a versatile language that can be used for a wide range of applications including mobile development, web development, and server-side applications. This difference in platform compatibility gives Kotlin a broader scope of use cases compared to COBOL.
Community Support and Resources: Kotlin, being a newer language, has a more active community and modern development tools compared to COBOL. This results in better support, documentation, and resources available for Kotlin developers, making it easier to learn and work with the language.
Performance and Efficiency: Kotlin is known for its high performance and efficiency due to its modern design and ability to leverage modern hardware capabilities. COBOL, although it is optimized for batch processing on mainframes, may not offer the same level of performance as Kotlin in more modern computing environments.
Integration with Modern Technologies: Kotlin has built-in interoperability with Java, which allows for seamless integration with existing Java frameworks and libraries. This makes Kotlin a popular choice for Android development and building applications that require integration with modern technologies, while COBOL may lack this level of integration with newer technologies.

In Summary, COBOL and Kotlin differ in their syntax, support for modern programming paradigms, platform compatibility, community support, performance, and integration with modern technologies.

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Advice on COBOL, Kotlin

Nick

Building cool things on the internet 🛠️ at Stream

Sep 5, 2019

Review

I work at Stream and I'm immensely proud of what our team is working on here at the company. Most recently, we announced our Android SDK accompanied by an extensive tutorial for Java and Kotlin. The tutorial covers just about everything you need to know when it comes to using our Android SDK for Stream Chat. The Android SDK touches many features offered by Stream Chat – more specifically, typing status, read state, file uploads, threads, reactions, editing messages, and commands. Head over to https://getstream.io/tutorials/android-chat/ and give it a whirl!

176k views176k

Comments

Zuriel

Jun 7, 2020

Needs advice

Can anyone help me decide what's best for app development or even android Oreo development? I'm in a state dilemma at the moment. I want to do Android programming, not necessarily web development. I have heard a lot of people recommend one of these, and it seems that both the tools can do the job. Which language would you choose?

291k views291k

Comments

Liviu Florin

Principal Software Engineer at Dell Technologies

Dec 11, 2020

Review

Hi, Well...It depends. Take this with a grain of salt as I'm not a mobile app developer. I would weigh in some factors. If I would want to go fast, maybe I would make an Android app and use the language that I know, Java or even Kotlin. It really depends on how much time do you have. Alternatives to Flutter you can find here: https://buildfire.com/programming-languages-for-mobile-app-development/. As you already went with Firebase it might be a good option to stick with Flutter as they are both Google products and their integration might work more smoothly.
I would also take into account the job market in your area and your personal preference in order to raise your chances to find a good job after you graduate and use your project as actual work experience. I guess it would help to put in some specs related to what you are trying to build, as some frameworks are better suited to do one job, rather than others and hopefully get more specific answers.

1.14k views1.14k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

COBOL	Kotlin
COBOL was one of the first programming languages to be standardised: the first COBOL standard was issued by ANSI in 1968. COBOL is primarily used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments.	Kotlin is a statically typed programming language for the JVM, Android and the browser, 100% interoperable with Java
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 51.5K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 6.1K
Stacks 130	Stacks 17.7K
Followers 147	Followers 11.9K
Votes 2	Votes 650
Pros & Cons
Pros 2 Business Oriented Language Cons 2 Extremely long code for simple functions	Pros 73 Interoperable with Java 55 Functional Programming support 51 Null Safety 46 Official Android support 44 Backed by JetBrains Cons 7 Java interop makes users write Java in Kotlin 4 Frequent use of {} keys 2 Hard to make teams adopt the Kotlin style 2 Nonullpointer Exception 1 Friendly community

What are some alternatives to COBOL, Kotlin?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.