I wouldn't say "haters", but people who have experience with COBOL (like me) know it's a horrible clunky language, so it's hard to feel enthusiastic about seeing it polished.
There's also the recurring post on HN, "COBOL is where all the money is!" which is invariably false and misleading. Though this isn't that kind of post, it will inevitably encourage it.
Personally, having used COBOL for what it was intended (accounting systems), I didn't really mind it. It was verbose, but so was everything back then.
I also really liked being able to read DDL directly from the file on the AS/400. Saved a lot of typing to just grab it :-)
"COBOL is where all the money is!" -> Heh, I always joke I'm gonna 'retire' as a part time COBOL coder. I didn't realize there was this many left out there. Maybe I should plan on Fourth instead ? PL/1 ?
