2 ms·

If COBOL is really as self-documenting as everyone seems to claim, why is it not possible to translate it to some other language and then use that version going

• christophilus 9y ago
  It is possible. I did it early in my career, fresh out of college. It wasn't hard, just tedious. I think (total speculation) that the root cause of failure in these projects is due to mismanagement and (maybe) the kinds of people who are pulled into the projects. To the latter point, it's really hard to attract great developer talent into such a project, same goes for medical systems and government contracting. There's better money, and way better work environments in other sectors. (Just my 2 cents.)