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While much of this was interesting and perhaps true, I don't really think it's why COBOL is still being used. It's still being used because it works for cases

While much of this was interesting and perhaps true, I don't really think it's why COBOL is still being used. It's still being used because it works for cases where the "BO" part of "COBOL" is relevant, in domains where the potential downside of migrating are very, very large (if it goes badly), and the potential upside is actually pretty limited. Best case, your migration doesn't get noticed as causing any problems, and now your programmers keep leaving for other industries because their skills are more general. That's a whole lot of scary scenarios on one side of the scale, against a pretty meager upside on the other side of the scale.

wyldfire 8y ago
> upside is actually pretty limited. You're selling the upside short. Having a pool of software devs to draw from who are familiar with the language and typical deployments is a big deal. The next y2k crisis for this industry will be in a decade or three when there's few left who have experience here.
- gaius 8y ago
  Having a pool of software devs to draw from Well, in a world where everyone is self-taught from what’s trending at the moment. In the old days if companies needed someone with particular skills they would train them and make an effort to retain them. Now the cost and the risk has all been pushed onto the employee. It should be a simple equation: cost of training vs cost of rewriting every 2-3 years...