>>I'm sure it could be done if someone wanted to badly enough. It just seems like a strange idea. Dusty old procedural language, no concept of visual interfaces...
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>Not procedural. Linear, with jumps. You could write linkable modules, but had to compile them separately.
>
>The weirdest concept I never met before or after: Perform xxx1 thru xxx2. Just do these blocks of code, please. Then do this block of code ten times. Then do these blocks and one more. As if the blocks of code were dishes at a meal, just match them somehow and run them, don't worry.
>
>Weird... and not that powerful at all. But it still works.

The origins of COBOL are actually similar to those of Xbase. The idea was to come up with a simpler, English-like computer language that you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to program.

Sharp observation about PERFORM .... THRU. I never thought about that, or remember even using it. (Of course, it's been a LONG time!)