Given the engineer's amendment to "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." is usually "If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.", I can only surmise that COBOL must be one of those languages that are so terrible that they deter their programmers from wanting to do that.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I once had to modify some COBOL code. It's a highly organized language, not terrible. But because it's old there's a shortage of people now who are good at it or want to learn it. You pretty much have to decide your career is going to be working on old code.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I’ll add that 20 years ago they said if you want to make money as a programmer then learn COBOL because of the demand

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Long ago (mid-90s) I had a coworker who was one of the last people alive who knew still how to program Cyborg, a 1970s-era programming/database platform that was still a legacy platform for a lot of companies. His job entailed making very small changes to the codebase and then waiting literally hours (sometimes days) for the shit to compile. He ended up being able to work from home for three different companies concurrently, making $300 an hour from each company. $7200 per day for about 15 minutes of actual work - while living in rural Texas.

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago

It's on my to-learn list.

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

I loathe that line

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

If it ain’t broke… maintain it.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

+1 - the word "loathe" doesn't get used often enough. The only time I remember hearing it in a movie was in Sixteen Candles.