(For what) Are Fortran, Cobol and Co. used today?

Posted by lamas on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by lamas
Published on 2010-02-15T14:47:21Z Indexed on 2010/03/19 19:31 UTC
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I'm a relatively young programmer and so I don't really know much about languages like Fortran or Cobol that have their origins in the beginning of modern informatics.

I'm a bit confused because it seems like there are many people out there saying that these two languages are still very alive and being used all over the world whereas others say the opposite. In addition, it seems like there are only very few questions tagged Fortran or Cobol here on stackoverflow.

Can someone "demystify" the situation for me? Who uses these senior languages these days and are they even used anymore?
Do you have any experiences with one of the languages or do you know something about their latest developments?

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