COBOL has been “dead” for so long, my grandpa wrote about it

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Scope and longevity of COBOL

  • COBOL is “dead” only in the sense that few greenfield systems are started in it; it still underpins many banking, government, airline, utility and enterprise systems.
  • Mainframes and COBOL compilers are modern and actively maintained (z/OS, new Telum processors, LTS compilers). Legacy systems may be old in logic, not in hardware.
  • Many argue COBOL and mainframes will persist at least into mid‑century; some call it “undead” rather than dead.

Reliability, environment, and patching

  • “Never failed” claims are attributed less to the language and more to mainframe architecture: stable ABIs, batch‑oriented workloads, reserved I/O/CPU, redundancy, and conservative change management.
  • OS and runtimes are patched regularly; COBOL programs often run unchanged for decades.
  • Comparisons with Python/Java highlight that COBOL changes slowly and gets very long‑term support, whereas modern ecosystems move faster and break more often.

Migration, modernization, and risk

  • Rewrites are seen as extremely risky because:
    • Business rules accumulated over decades live only in mainframe code and a few experts’ heads.
    • Systems mix COBOL with assembler, VSAM, custom IPC, and deeply intertwined data models.
  • Many institutions wrap mainframes with web services or middleware instead of replacing them.
  • There is active work on migration tools and emulation: COBOL‑to‑Java/COBOL‑to‑cloud platforms, GCC/LLVM frontends, containerized mainframe workloads, and open‑source stacks (e.g., GnuCOBOL, SuperBOL). Success and maintainability remain open questions.

Jobs, pay, and skills

  • Reports on compensation conflict: some mention very high consultant bill rates; others see only modest premiums over mainstream languages.
  • Big value is often domain and platform knowledge (CICS, JCL, DB2, z/OS) rather than COBOL syntax.
  • Access to real mainframes is a key barrier; language alone is easy to learn.
  • Some suggest COBOL work is stable but “boring”; others see it as a good hedge against hype cycles.

Language design, 4GLs, and “dead” languages

  • Thread debates “language generations” and notes many 4GLs and RAD tools (dBase, FoxPro, ABAP, etc.) have faded or narrowed while COBOL, Fortran, and others persist.
  • Several argue that most mainstream languages never truly die; they enter long maintenance tails and their ideas live on elsewhere.

LLMs and legacy code

  • LLMs are already used to explain and partially translate COBOL, RPG, and similar code; results around 80–90% accuracy are cited.
  • Many stress LLMs don’t remove the need for understanding complex business rules; prompts are effectively another DSL without a formal spec.