COBOL vs Visual Basic

Overview

Visual Basic

Stacks569

Followers514

Votes8

COBOL

Stacks130

Followers147

Votes2

COBOL vs Visual Basic: What are the differences?

Introduction

COBOL and Visual Basic are both programming languages used for developing software applications. While they share some similarities, there are several key differences between the two languages.

Usage and Popularity: COBOL is primarily used for developing business applications, especially in the finance and banking sectors. It has been in existence since the 1960s and is still widely used today. On the other hand, Visual Basic is a general-purpose programming language developed by Microsoft and is popular for creating Windows-based applications and web services.
Syntax and Structure: COBOL follows a very structured syntax, with a strong emphasis on readability and self-documenting code. It uses a verbose syntax with a significant number of reserved keywords. Visual Basic, on the other hand, follows a more concise syntax with a simple and easy-to-understand structure.
Design and Development Approach: COBOL is a procedural programming language where programs are divided into a series of procedures or subroutines. It is predominantly focused on data processing and business logic. Visual Basic, on the other hand, uses a graphical development approach known as Rapid Application Development (RAD). It allows developers to visually design user interfaces and code using event-driven programming techniques.
Platform Independence: COBOL is designed to be platform-independent, allowing programs written in COBOL to run on various operating systems and hardware architectures. Visual Basic, on the other hand, is mostly limited to the Windows platform and is tightly integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem.
Runtime Environment: COBOL programs are compiled into machine code or intermediate code and executed directly on the target platform. Visual Basic, however, relies on a runtime environment called the .NET Framework, where the code is compiled into an intermediate language (IL) that runs in a virtual machine known as the Common Language Runtime (CLR).
Legacy Systems and Maintenance: COBOL is often used for maintaining and modernizing legacy systems that were originally written in COBOL. It is known for its ability to handle large-scale data processing and transactional systems. Visual Basic, on the other hand, is more commonly used for developing new applications, and its support for legacy systems is limited.

In summary, COBOL is widely used for business applications, has a structured syntax, and is platform-independent, while Visual Basic is popular for Windows-based applications, uses a concise syntax, and is tightly integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem.

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Detailed Comparison

Visual Basic	COBOL
Visual Basic is derived from BASIC and enables the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects, Remote Data Objects, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects.	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.
Statistics
Stacks 569	Stacks 130
Followers 514	Followers 147
Votes 8	Votes 2
Pros & Cons
Pros 5 ALGOL-like syntax makes code more readable 3 XML Literals Cons 4 Specific to the microsoft platform	Pros 2 Business Oriented Language Cons 2 Extremely long code for simple functions
Integrations
.NET	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Visual Basic, COBOL?

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.

Related Comparisons

COBOL vs Visual Basic: What are the differences?

Introduction

COBOL and Visual Basic are both programming languages used for developing software applications. While they share some similarities, there are several key differences between the two languages.

Usage and Popularity: COBOL is primarily used for developing business applications, especially in the finance and banking sectors. It has been in existence since the 1960s and is still widely used today. On the other hand, Visual Basic is a general-purpose programming language developed by Microsoft and is popular for creating Windows-based applications and web services.
Syntax and Structure: COBOL follows a very structured syntax, with a strong emphasis on readability and self-documenting code. It uses a verbose syntax with a significant number of reserved keywords. Visual Basic, on the other hand, follows a more concise syntax with a simple and easy-to-understand structure.
Design and Development Approach: COBOL is a procedural programming language where programs are divided into a series of procedures or subroutines. It is predominantly focused on data processing and business logic. Visual Basic, on the other hand, uses a graphical development approach known as Rapid Application Development (RAD). It allows developers to visually design user interfaces and code using event-driven programming techniques.
Platform Independence: COBOL is designed to be platform-independent, allowing programs written in COBOL to run on various operating systems and hardware architectures. Visual Basic, on the other hand, is mostly limited to the Windows platform and is tightly integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem.
Runtime Environment: COBOL programs are compiled into machine code or intermediate code and executed directly on the target platform. Visual Basic, however, relies on a runtime environment called the .NET Framework, where the code is compiled into an intermediate language (IL) that runs in a virtual machine known as the Common Language Runtime (CLR).
Legacy Systems and Maintenance: COBOL is often used for maintaining and modernizing legacy systems that were originally written in COBOL. It is known for its ability to handle large-scale data processing and transactional systems. Visual Basic, on the other hand, is more commonly used for developing new applications, and its support for legacy systems is limited.

COBOL vs Visual Basic

Overview

COBOL vs Visual Basic: What are the differences?