So isn't the real problem that we have 800 billion lines of legacy code that needs to be understood and maintained; it just happens to be written in COBOL? No.

So isn't the real problem that we have 800 billion lines of legacy code that needs to be understood and maintained; it just happens to be written in COBOL? No. 800 billion lines of COBOL = 1 million lines of BASIC A gross exaggeration, of course, but after 7 years of COBOL, I discovered BASIC and instantly became 10X of my former self. I would never go back. I get enough overhead from my bosses. I don't need it from the tech too.