COBOL underpins the entire financial system
Rather than reading yet another article about how there’s all that COBOL still out there powering critical systems, which should comes as no surprise whatsoever to regular readers of Hacker News —— why not read a book about the deeper reasons <i>how and why old technologies persist, and the ethic and duty of maintaining them</i>. Specifically:<p>David Edgerton, <i>The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900</i> (2006).<p>Andrew L. Russell and Lee Vinsel, <i>The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most</i> (2020).<p>You won’t agree with everything in those books, but they will make you think deeply about old technologies and the stories we tell ourselves about innovation.