So obviously there’s been a lot of legacy COBOL kicking around, but is this still the case? Would a new COBOL project have been started in the last 20 years? I kind of imagined that Java (or at least the JVM) has eaten its lunch.
Maintaining and modernizing these critical systems is important work.
Edited to specify not a bank.
In the 80s (and probably before), every system I worked on had at least one critical COBOL program missing source code.
I am wondering if you noticed the same with this project.
Been there :)
Yes, you always get a "no" for doing that.
Any "lets move this COBOL to something else" will, more often than not, flounder on the fact that "rewrite all this functionality" will cost massively more than "just find someone to extend what we already have".