Down with periods!

I still see recently written Cobol programs where the author uses a period after virtually every Procedure Division statement.  


I find this puzzling.  


The introduction of END-IF over 20 years ago has made periods unnecessary in the Procedure Division except for the end of a paragraph and paragraph names.  When maintaining a period-infested program I like to remove all unnecessary periods in the paragraph I am working on.  If I have time, I change the necessary periods to END-IF and NEXT SENTENCE to CONTINUE.  If you are careful, there is very little risk in doing this, and you will leave the program a little better than you found it.  Make it Right!