COBOL...great call. COBOL is dead but it won't lie down, except for the vast quanties of COBOL still being developed and deployed that you don't hear about because those guys aren't hanging out on social media posting their latest vibecoded trivia. We're on the...what...30th iteration since the late 80s of "we have the magic beans that will translate your COBOL code into <new hot language du jour> so your business logic will totally without fail port over (pinky swear) and you don't have to pay for those smelly old mainframe coders but only fresh young (cheap) newbies". How'd that work out the previous 29 times; I'm sure rubbing AI on it will work this time.
I have had depressingly many conversations (including people who should know better) where the other side absolutely refused to believe that IBM still makes (lots) of money on mainframes (you can google it...there are SEC filings), much less that the financial I worked for was spending high-9-figures on our mainframe install (in 2026). Some people think StackOverflow, Twitter and HN and the rest are the only true source of truth and if the echo chamber says it, it has to be true. These are the same people who think the US$25B ARM market has decisively destroyed the US$100-125B+ x86 market (amount depending on source), which is without a doubt dead/zombie, no question, who do it with a straight face and no sense of shame. Like I said...trolls and children (actual age irrelevant).
