> We all know that "somewhere" old COBOL code is running, but in practice the companies managing the bulk of data for society didn't even exist before Y2K. Ever

> We all know that "somewhere" old COBOL code is running, but in practice the companies managing the bulk of data for society didn't even exist before Y2K. Everyone with unmaintainable COBOL has long since migrated to really bad Java code instead. Not quite. I'd suggest that there are still many trillions of dollars worth of people's money still managed in COBOL on mainframe core banking systems. Certainly the "big 4" banks in Australia all still have such systems in production (though they also have java systems) Disclosure: I have worked for a few banks.