IBM and Linux Foundation Open Mainframe Project was launched an Enterprise COBOL project in March of 2020.  The github has 523 forks and 2.5k that starred the repository.
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The discussion subject was a statement from Professor Tak Auyeung, American River College, made in the first lecture of a lecture series, COBOL Friday's.   The lecture series is from educators and industry professionals for educators, industry professionals, and students. COBOL Fridays is a frequently overlooked by-product of the project.

Consider reviewing content of these lectures as material to be used in your COBOL curriculum to assist students understand more about COBOL than many industry professionals.

Many years ago, I posted Linkedin question.  What is the most important programming language?  Intentionally I did not include any clarification of important.  My comment and direct responses from others obviously touched a nerve with many resulting in definition of 'important' which is the real debate.  I debated for years an exceptional programmer is not a programmer that mastered a specific programming language but a programmer that understands enough about many programming languages to pick the best programming language to be applied to a specific set of requirements, 'fit-for-purpose'.

I welcome you to contribute to this discussion.  Over 1600 programming languages exist according to some web sites.  What do you consider to be the most important computer programming language?

References
IBM Developer

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COBOL Programming Course - Open Mainframe Project

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COBOL Programming Course - Open Mainframe Project Most financial organizations, banks, insurance companies, retailers and governments need systems that must flawlessly handle huge volumes of transactions every day. Mainframes have been quietly managing this process for decades as their reliability, availability, security, scalability, and performance cannot be matched. View this on Open Mainframe Project >

GitHub - openmainframeproject/cobol-programming-course: Training materials and labs for a "Getting Started" level course on COBOL

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GitHub - openmainframeproject/cobol-programming-course: Training materials and labs for a "Getting Started" level course on COBOL This project is a set of training materials and labs for COBOL on z/OS. The following books are available within this repository. To get started, follow the steps in their respective READMEs. If you run into any issues, please don't hesitate to reach out on our Slack channel. View this on GitHub >

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Paul Newton
Consulting IT Specialist
IBM
Coppell TX
8177899862
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Hi Paul,
In my opinion the best programming language is the one in you are fluent in (generally the first one you have learned). Is going with you along all the projects and you feel comfortable with it, you solve all the problems you are challenged with it (is like to be in love!). In my case it was BASIC. But like to be in love, new needs, new constraints appears and you need to change/adapt your mind to a new/different horizon and in my case was then COBOL. And after, a lot more came. Always because the new challenges needed new measures, and most of the time the work is the driver!
But I agree with you: you need to be shaped/structured before to the right way of thinking. After this you are in position to solve anything!
I hope I answer all the points
Georges KOPP
Angers(FRANCE)

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Georges Kopp
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