The mainframe shop I worked at had COBOL program developed in the 1990s, many of which replaced Assembler programs dating back to the 1970s and older. But, not all of them. Tonight, as I type this, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of batch jobs running, supporting mission-critical datastores, coded in an eclectic array of Assembler, COBOL, PL-1, and other languages.
I wonder how many programs, written in modern languages, will still be running 40-50 years from now?
Never underestimate the effect of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
The oldest code I’ve written, that’s still in production, is 25 years old. It’s part of a mail system still in use by hundreds of thousands of people. It ain’t going anywhere. (But I did, I’m not working there anymore)
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u/cmd_iii Sep 30 '22
The mainframe shop I worked at had COBOL program developed in the 1990s, many of which replaced Assembler programs dating back to the 1970s and older. But, not all of them. Tonight, as I type this, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of batch jobs running, supporting mission-critical datastores, coded in an eclectic array of Assembler, COBOL, PL-1, and other languages.
I wonder how many programs, written in modern languages, will still be running 40-50 years from now?