Cobol and the information systems curriculum

There is considerable disagreement as to whether or not a procedural language, such as COBOL, should be included in the junior/senior year course work of information systems students. The curriculum recommendations of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) includes a procedural language prerequisite for information systems students. The ACM curriculum course, "Program, Data, and File Structures", includes programming as a topic within the course.This article presents arguments against the inclusion of COBOL within the information systems curriculum. It is intended to promote debate within the academic community to determine if a procedural language should be included in the curriculum and if so, which language should be taught. Arguments for a Procedural Language.