America’s Cities Are Running on Software from the ’80s
A few years ago I had to update some FORTRAN code written in the 1980s that did bond valuations and some other financial stuff.  It hadn't been touched since it was written and was now running out of space because the number of bonds keeps increasing year after year.<p>I'd never done anything with FORTRAN before, so I spent a couple days reading about it and looking into how it works, fearful that I'd muck everything up trying to fix it.<p>I open the code and find that it was the most elegantly written software you could wish for, with fantastic comments and structure.  I changed two numbers and was done, buying us another 30 years or so of rock-solid service.