I'm rather young and so I haven't experienced the times when COBOL was still in use and even going mainstream, maybe you can help me out.

Everywhere I go and surf I:

• Am getting told about how horrible COBOL is
• See sites making fun of COBOL
• Hear that I should be happy that I don't have to use COBOL, from older programmers
• See others make anti-COBOL-ist jokes

I don't know much about COBOL, except that it is still used everywhere as many old systems haven't got refactored and that it is even still developed and managed. I have also looked at some COBOL code examples but it seems like they are as rare and expensive as unicorn blood.

• If you close this question or give me sarcastic, irrelevant answers I'll have to learn COBOL to find it out the hard way. I'm serious.