It's not a simple question to answer. It's a leading question. In fact, whenever I hear such a question, I imagine hearing Admiral Akbar in the background, saying "it's a trap"! There are question(s) behind the question that need to be addressed. Why bother to learn modern COBOL, unless ...
There is usually so much more to "it" than just the COBOL itself, and It really depends a lot on the specific circumstances. . A typical situation is ... a "project" of converting and "modernizing" one or more existing native green-screen COBOL applications, replacing them with a managed, GUI, Visual COBOL environment, and perhaps changing or re-working some of the functionality along the way. How extreme will the differences be when comparing the old application / environment to the new? Is the platform or operating system changing? Imagine, for example, the impact of going from a traditional mainframe environment to a Windows Server or Linux Server environment. Will a database be introduced? Any system re-design? What are the expectations of the users / sponsors / customers? What about the analysts and programmers involved? Do they know the old system? Do they have any experience with the new stuff (GUI, OO, managed? Hopefully, they are eager and enthusiastic. Is everybody on the same page?
At minimum, the learning curve for the developers in going from native COBOL to managed COBOL is not insignificant (although this might be a comparatively small part of the overall project undertaking). To some extent, the same would be true in going from old Classic Visual Basic to Visual Basic .Net.
Doing all of the above is usually judged a significant project. Will the project be funded adequately and given the time required? Will there be project management involved? Again, are the expectations realistic?
Fortunately, Micro Focus has provided lots of compatibility and a good way to ease into the new environment, in that you can for the most part re-compile the application and move it to the new environment and bring it up in production, and then come back and modernize it in phases.
So, in many respects, the above is not something that is unique to COBOL. It's like any software development / modernization project. The secret will be to carefully architect, design and manage the project and the new application so that improvements are delivered to the users in carefully-sized incremental phases over the life of the project, with the programmers gaining more experience with the new stuff as the project progresses. Try to avoid any big bangs. I could write a book. What was your question?
