on my college days (8yrs ago), i had to study COBOL as part of syllabus....

you had to write lots of codes as header on every simple program you write, define every variable you gonna use (with how much space they need) upfront..

and you can't leave a blank space any where in the code unless it is required!!

best part? you need to start every line of code with 7 blank spaces! and each line should end at 72 chars...if you have more to type in a line, the next line's 7the char should be a dash(-) to indicate so..

and the compiler's error messages are shit!

now, even with modern languages, people think its hard to code!