The COBOL Problem
&quot;Software is a form of knowledge capture. If the language (and tools) have become opaque, then the job of knowledge capture has failed.&quot;<p>I would add that &quot;the job has failed&quot;.  The next consultant who modifies the code is destined to break it (resulting in more work required of said constractor, so we have a dangerous incentive here).<p>Just today, Medtronic CEO boasted that their ventilator uses 1 million lines of code.  How much of this is the test code?  Can requirements be traced to the code and code to the requirements?<p>Another example: how many projects on GitHub provide a comprehensive list of requirements&#x2F;features?  If you don&#x27;t have a traceable list of requirements you <i>don&#x27;t know</i> what you are building (or testing).  And, on your job: how many projects you worked on that have a comprehensive list of requirements?<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Medtronic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1245777861774118913" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Medtronic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1245777861774118913</a>