I am building an open-source language layer on top of Go, designed specifically for COBOL-style workloads:
- Native decimal arithmetic (COBOL-accurate)
- Record structures and copybook compatibility
- Batch jobs and transactional orchestration as first-class constructs
- Sequential / indexed file I/O baked into the runtime
- Compiles through Go for speed, concurrency, and cloud deployability
Think of it as Kotlin for COBOL, or “COBOL on Go” familiar to mainframe engineers, powerful for modern developers.
I've been working on testing the compiler with NIST test right now and here are the results so far:
NIST COBOL-85 validation: 77.61% overall (305/393 tests)
- NC (Core COBOL): 97.89% (93/95)
- SM (Statements): 100% (13/13)
- RL (Relative I/O): 100% (26/26)
- IF (Intrinsic Functions): 100% (45/45)
- IC (CALL): 96% (24/25)
- Compliance tests: 100% passing
- Acceptance tests: 100% passing
I can't find a business case for it so far, so please feel free to share any ideas
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