Other than constraints most of the issues you raise are just as likely to happen in modern languages as well. That comes down to how the team was managed. If an

Other than constraints most of the issues you raise are just as likely to happen in modern languages as well. That comes down to how the team was managed. If anything I have found a lot of older code over documented. My difficulty when I had assist in migrating some old COBOL from CICS on a zSeries was understanding their file structure techniques. However that was easily remedied by understanding the task as hand so that the data was better represented on the new system. Is it a trap? Well if you want a secure position in managing a code base and maybe eventually working with others to move it to a new platform I do not see how. I have been around enough new languages to know we are always going to run into code bases we just want nothing to do with but here we are. The problem to me is you may land in a development shop that is not well maintained. The code has worked for so long that management outside the department just went assumed that everyone knew everything.