Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.
COBOL is perfectly suitable for financial purposes for which it was designed. The SSA code has gone through decades worth of changes and improvements that cannot be replicated even in 10 years.
I bet is cheaper to teach it to new programmers than to rewrite old software. Just because a language is old doesn’t mean it is unlearnable or that software written in it needs to be rewritten.
The code is already in production, there is no point in rewriting it. It can be maintained for decades to come. New features can be implemented in other languages and over time.
COBOL is perfectly suitable for financial purposes for which it was designed. The SSA code has gone through decades worth of changes and improvements that cannot be replicated even in 10 years.
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I bet is cheaper to teach it to new programmers than to rewrite old software. Just because a language is old doesn’t mean it is unlearnable or that software written in it needs to be rewritten.
Agreed. But those that do know COBOL make BANK maintaining the old financial systems!
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The code is already in production, there is no point in rewriting it. It can be maintained for decades to come. New features can be implemented in other languages and over time.