The Dinosaur That Refuses to Go Extinct
Picture this: you're using your credit card at a coffee shop, and somewhere in the background, a programming language older than your parents is processing that transaction. That language is COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language), and despite being created in 1959, it's still running a shocking amount of the world's most critical systems.
I know what you're thinking—how is a language from the Eisenhower era still relevant in our age of AI and quantum computing? Well, buckle up, because this story gets wild.
When "Temporary" Solutions Become Permanent Nightmares
COBOL was originally designed to be simple and readable, almost like English. The idea was brilliant: make programming accessible to business folks, not just computer scientists in lab coats. And honestly? It worked too well.
Banks loved it. Government agencies embraced it. Airlines built their reservation systems on it. By the time everyone realized there might be better alternatives, COBOL had already become the digital equivalent of rebar in concrete—you literally can't remove it without the whole structure collapsing.
Here's the kicker: an estimated 95% of ATM transactions still touch COBOL code. Think about that next time you grab cash from a machine. You're essentially having a conversation with a computer program that's older than the Beatles.
The Great COBOL Paradox
Here's where things get really interesting (and terrifying). COBOL is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere:
- Everywhere: Powering critical systems at major banks, processing Social Security payments, managing air traffic control
- Nowhere: Barely taught in universities, with a rapidly aging workforce of developers who actually know how to use it
It's like having all your city's bridges built by a construction technique that nobody learns anymore. What could go wrong?
Why We Can't Just "Fix" It
"Why don't they just rewrite everything in Python or JavaScript?" you might ask. Oh, sweet summer child, if only it were that simple.
Imagine trying to perform heart surgery on a patient who needs to keep running a marathon. That's essentially what modernizing COBOL systems would be like. These aren't simple apps—we're talking about systems that handle millions of transactions daily, with decades of business logic baked into millions of lines of code.
One bank executive told me their core system has over 200 million lines of COBOL code. To put that in perspective, Windows 10 has about 50 million lines. We're not just talking about replacing a program; we're talking about rebuilding digital civilizations.
The Human Crisis Behind the Code
But here's what really keeps IT executives awake at night: the people who built and maintain these systems are retiring or, sadly, passing away. We're facing a knowledge extinction event.
I recently spoke with a COBOL developer who's 78 years old and still getting calls to fix critical systems because he's one of the few people left who understands a particular airline's reservation system. He jokes that he's "too valuable to retire," but it's not really funny when you think about it.
Living in COBOL's Shadow
So what does this mean for the rest of us? Well, every time you:
- Use an ATM
- Book a flight
- Apply for government benefits
- Get your paycheck processed
There's a decent chance you're depending on code that predates the moon landing.
It's not necessarily bad code—COBOL systems are remarkably stable and reliable. They've been battle-tested for decades. But they're also increasingly fragile, expensive to maintain, and impossible to quickly modify when the business world demands rapid changes.
The Path Forward (Sort Of)
The tech industry is slowly waking up to this reality. Some companies are investing in "COBOL-to-cloud" migration tools. Others are training new developers in COBOL (yes, really). A few brave souls are even trying to automatically translate COBOL into modern languages using AI.
But let's be honest: this is going to be a decades-long process, assuming we can pull it off at all.
The Lesson in All This
COBOL teaches us something profound about technology: sometimes our "temporary" solutions become permanent fixtures, and sometimes "good enough" becomes "too big to change."
As we build today's systems with modern languages and frameworks, we should probably ask ourselves: which of our current technologies will future generations curse us for making "too essential to remove"?
My money's on JavaScript. Sorry, not sorry.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/cobol-is-the-asbestos-of-programming-languages