COBOL Will Outlive Us All

jfruh writes "Here's an old computer science joke: What's the difference between hardware and software? If you use hardware long enough, it breaks. If you use software long enough, it works. The truth behind that is the reason that so much decades-old COBOL code is out there still driving crucial applications at banks and other huge companies. Many attempts to replace COBOL applications flopped in the 1980s and '90s, and we're stuck with them for the foreseeable future — but the Baby Boomers who wrote all that code are now retiring en masse."

Comments

If a technology is outdated, outsource it.

[ixarux]

Yup. I was hired into one of those mainframe companies that worked with COBOL and JCL. The work was the most menial of works I had ever done(after they trained me for 6 months in it).
The financial sector, the lumbering dinosaur that accepts change only when they have no other option, and the ones maintaining decades-old mainframes really have no incentive to change technologies at the moment. It's easier to just outsource the maintenance and servicing of the mainframes. There are enough of coders (like in the company I joined) in developing countries across the world who would gladly take it up.
From my experience, there is little development happening any more. I think the day when they run out of people who want to this crappy menial job (which is never) is the day COBOL will go extinct.

Re:If a technology is outdated, outsource it.

[jandersen]

So, you didn't like to work on a mainframe, then?

But don't slag off the mainframe just because it is 'old' technology - the PC architecture isn't all that young either, and the mainframe, believe it or not, is in fact very VERY much on the technological forefront, hardware wise. Mainframes had fiber attached disks before most modern developers had heard of networking.

Big to huge institutions don't use mainframes because they are too backwards thinking, but because of reliability. In an industry where downtime costs millions to tens of millions per minute, that counts a lot. On a mainfram you can hot-swap just about everything - not just disks, but everything. And if you wish, you can run Linux on it as well; but it is amazing how often the choice is MVS and COBOL; that is because they are just what you need - not multitools like UNIX and C, just a plain old knife meant for cutting only.

If it aint broke...

[detain]

why bother paying tons of money developing new software, going through the painful growth and ironing out all the bugs of the new software, educating people on the new software, importing your current clients into new software, getting modern hardware to run the new software, installing modern networking equpment for the new hardware to run the new software, etc.. theres just no real reason to upgrade the software. There won't be many new exploits for COBOL based software as well, since its not used by the average person.

Speaking of COBOL outliving us all...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Does anybody know what language(s) are used for the "Dead Hand" second-strike control system that the Russians were working on during the Cold War? Personally, I'd nominate them as the programming languages that will outlive us all...

Re:Batch

[Dimitrii]

even tough RPG is ill-reputed as an old static programming language this looks somehow like any other high level language and anyone should understand what's going on here without trying to figure out what that strange INSPECT does

Back in the late 80's early 90's, I was a co-op for IBM. I wrote an RPG program to rearrange some data file. Because of scope, the program had to be reviewed by a senior programmer.
"This is just a start. Where is the rest of it. Do you need help?"
"No. It is complete. Sample input and output files right next to it. I used the cycle"
"The cycle still works?!"

I had learned RPG II in HS. The cycle is all that was needed. He showed that program to every programmer that walked into his office.

The deal it that it all keeps working.