Choosing between assembler and COBOL

Posted by Azares Cob on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Azares Cob
Published on 2010-04-16T15:49:12Z Indexed on 2010/04/16 15:53 UTC
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cobol

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assembler

I have to rewrite and greatly modify parts of a legacy COBOL application. The COBOL source-code is available (around 100.000 lines of copy & pasted code mixed with GOTOs).

Some more details on the system: It is a general management system controlling transactions, bank management, customer data and employees of the company I work for. The COBOL-powered database is about 4 Terabytes distributed over 50 old HDDs. (But messing around with them is the sysadmins job)

They are using COBOL85 only.

Now I have two options: Rewrite and refactor 50% of the old COBOL system, or use X86 assembly.

Should I use X86 assembler or COBOL?

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