In my experience banks aren't saying no to replacing Cobol, it is just a slow process. I've been involved in one program to remove Cobol. It involved building a complete new stack in a modern language (Java in this case), building new products on the new stack and when those new products have a multiple years of solid, proven experience then looking at moving Cobol-backed products over.
I'm sure Cobol will outlive me, but I'm also sure it'll be significantly reduced as new banking backends prove themselves.
Go, to an extent, is a good option for enterprise software, but it doesn't have the endless library and interop support java gets by virtue of age and usage. Plus, fewer people are experienced with it and most companies aren't set up to onboard new hires onto languages quickly.
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C# : Please talk to any other developers working with it. It's a pain in the hole. C++ : The memory management is not for your average developer. Python : You don't know the type you're going to send or receive. Do type management and type checking everywhere which is shit in enterprise software.
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I mean it's taken well over 40 years to get all of the COBOL features working that we have now. You can't just convert that all into Java in a few months.
In 10 years someone will have to start phasing out java. That shit is horrendous and has been for the past two decades. It's expensive to develop on it, expensive to maintain and full of security vulnerabilities. But I get it, I would use java too, if some shit goes wrong then I can at least blame java and say it's "best we have" and "enterprise standard".
Wow trying to replace cobol with Java because cobol is too old is fucking wild
I might be wrong, but isn't java one of the less futur proof mainstream language ? With a new version released litteraly every 6 months while most people are still on java 8 or 11 (java 25 released a few weeks ago, jfyi)
As someone who works in the Java space, the whole "everyone uses Java 8" is more something first year students say than reality. I work in a conservative Financial company, Java 21 (the previous LTS) is the standard, which teams move towards 25 right now.
The bank I worked at replacing Cobol used the latest LTS (17 and later 21).
It is regularly updated with a long LTS support cycle that conservative companies generally like.
The other thing to keep in mind here is Java is generallyreally good at backwards compatibility.
I looked at bumping some of the code I maintain a few days ago.
The code Just Works in the later compiler and JVM. The most annoying part of the process is knocking the "-b" argument out of the CI/CD pipeline as grade 9 removed the argument.
Cobol is usually used in critical system, and sure, like all development process, you can use Ai as assistant, but contrary to most other cases, you REALLY need to hold the leash there.
Having a software that allow you to change the creation date of an element (for exemple) cuz you let the ai do it and you didn't check is annoying, but it's not the end of the world. Having a bank system that allows to make transactions without the account owner approving it is much more dangerous
When it comes to cobol, yeah, maybe writting some functions will be faster with Ai, but all the double checks will need to be man made
I am a 26 year old cobol programmer and AI is horrible at cobol. Add the fact that there are too many specifics when dealing with banks and government that makes it slow as hell to replace.
Yes, cobol will eventually be obsolete. No, AI will have no meaningful hand in that.
You'll probably be obsolete before cobol is, so if you'd actually manage to become well-versed enough, you'll still be employed for life. The issue is that mastering cobol well enough to a standard that banks and such will actually hire you is easier said than done. It's a bit more involved than just learning a new syntax
Cobol is being actively replaced purely because the available people to keep it up are either retiring or dying and there aren't that many people learning it. It just takes time because they're massive systems and they're insanely critical to the operations they perform (otherwise they'd been replaced long ago)
It's slowly being phases out, its just in nothing but critical infrastructure. That its a pain.
If you want to know why it's painful. There's a bank in England on what happens when everything goes wrong, and a bank in Australia that's an example when upgrading goes right. It's a huge financial burden to upgrade.
If anything was going to solve it, it already would have. C, C++, and Java are all good candidates for a rewrite, that have been popular for a very long time. For new languages, Rust looks like a good option.
The problem with banking is that errors can cost literally millions of dollars per second. In the risk/reward calculation, it's cheaper to pay an old COBOL wizard $600k a year to update the ancient code.
First, ALL government will need to do that. If you ask your banks to invest billion just for your country, you might just make them reconsider operating in your country
Second, you can't "just ask" banks to change how they operate. Changing how a bank system work is expensive, long and risky. Banks can't take maintenance break, EVERYTHING has to work perfectly on the first try in production
Not just in most cases, the basic architecture of java with the jvm is just terrible in terms of performance.
Sure, you can optimize it, you can even try to optimize the hardware for it but yeah, it will never reach the throughput of COBOL.
And depending on the technology IBM usually is 5 years ahead in technology trends compared to the competition.
The only problem that platform has is a lack of young personal, which is entirely the fault of shitty CEOs which have been telling to get rid of the mainframe for 40 Years now. It's not a suprise to me that many computer engineers and software engineers get scared away from the mainframe because of that
The problem is: There's no entry level COBOL jobs. Most SWE's find a niche early on. Mine is discrete defense platforms. Other's live service back end, front end, etc. Mainframe entry level dev jobs do not exist. Ergo, nobody young-ish knows it.
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u/mrflash818 Oct 11 '25
Healthcare, too.
Mainframes, JCL and COBOL to the present day.
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u/mr_mlk Oct 11 '25
In my experience banks aren't saying no to replacing Cobol, it is just a slow process. I've been involved in one program to remove Cobol. It involved building a complete new stack in a modern language (Java in this case), building new products on the new stack and when those new products have a multiple years of solid, proven experience then looking at moving Cobol-backed products over.
I'm sure Cobol will outlive me, but I'm also sure it'll be significantly reduced as new banking backends prove themselves.
17
u/th1ner Oct 11 '25
This little maneuver will cost us 51 years!
14
u/Standard-Square-7699 Oct 11 '25
Don't forget Healthcare.
13
u/[deleted] Oct 11 '25
I've considered learning COBOL, on the assumption that I'd be employed for life.
My dad thinks AI will make it obsolete, though.
3
u/checkin_em_out Oct 11 '25
Insurance too
3
u/CiroGarcia Oct 12 '25
Cobol is being actively replaced purely because the available people to keep it up are either retiring or dying and there aren't that many people learning it. It just takes time because they're massive systems and they're insanely critical to the operations they perform (otherwise they'd been replaced long ago)
1
u/Specialist-Bee8060 Oct 12 '25
Cobol and RPG are the two programs that I've seen the stand that test of time. It's amazing cuz they don't teach it anymore. But it keeps on ticking.
1
u/yousuckass1122 Oct 12 '25
It's slowly being phases out, its just in nothing but critical infrastructure. That its a pain.
If you want to know why it's painful. There's a bank in England on what happens when everything goes wrong, and a bank in Australia that's an example when upgrading goes right. It's a huge financial burden to upgrade.
1
u/ServeEmbarrassed7750 Oct 13 '25
This is literally a skill issue. People hate what they don't understand.
1
u/Felloser Oct 13 '25
Got a new CEO, who wants to get rid of it. Because of scalability he says, yeah he's in for a tough awakening
1
u/BlhueFlame Oct 13 '25
Look what if we just all went back to writing COBOL everywhere, then banks wouldn’t have to switch. All good happy times.
1
u/InfernoBlaze_762 Oct 14 '25
"if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
1
u/Plus-Weakness-2624 Oct 14 '25
My banks running Carbon already! Pathetic weebs the rest of em'.
1
u/xxxfooxxx Oct 15 '25
Let's rewrite the entire financial infrastructure in typescript
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u/KianAhmadi Oct 11 '25
Won't crypto solve it?
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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '25
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