this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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abandonware empires (mander.xyz)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] Zehzin 188 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (24 children)

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Critical government services running COBOL. Programs stored in magnetic tapes, entire offices dependant on one guy who's retiring. All that code will be lost in time, like tears in rain

[–] TheLameSauce 89 points 8 months ago (16 children)

There is genuine money to be made in learning the "dead languages" of the IT world. If you're the only person within 500 Miles that knows how to maintain COBOL you can basically name your price when it comes to salary.

I just wish I had the slightest interest in programing

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 33 points 8 months ago (5 children)

This is one of those fantasies people have. You might as well hope to win the lottery.

Imagine being the only person who can play a extremely custom instrument. Unless someone absolutely needs you, you'll be sitting and hoping to get a job. Worse, a company is more likely to hire some people to rebuild it rather than hope to find this unicorn who can do this.

Source: Been in the industry for 15yrs. I'm one of those guys you hire to migrate old software to a web app. And frequently, company will pay to modernize rather than support outdated tech every time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

COBOL case is bit different. You can't just modernize millions of lines of code that is functionally unique without service disruption - and services that uses COBOL that large often tends to be very sensitive.

The fact that COBOL as a language is both atrocity to either use or read didn't help that either.

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