> Most languages have the same core data models/abstract concepts There was a post on here not too long ago about COBOL's decimal arithmetic -- if you're not c

> Most languages have the same core data models/abstract concepts There was a post on here not too long ago about COBOL's decimal arithmetic -- if you're not careful, your Java / Python / Ocaml is going to give you different numbers. So on the "core data model" front, there's more than meets the eye. Add to that the barrier to entry of working on mainframes: even if you install an emulator and play around with COBOL, you don't have a big COBOL codebase to work with, so you have no idea what you're going to see in a production system that was written 45 years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17636029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17636029 Not that I really believe we're headed for a COBOL crisis. COBOL systems will no doubt continue to rust in place and eventually reach irrelevance as they're decommissioned one by one during horribly mismanaged bank mergers. The exception is the federal government of the U.S., which will surely continue operating its COBOL systems until the end of time.