All code has a lifespan, either because it rots or it becomes irrelevant/unneeded. Existing C++ code will gradually expire and the most important pieces will indeed be rewritten, accelerated by shrinking expertise.

▲ davidcbc 7 months ago | parent [-]

This may be technically true on a long enough timeline, but COBOL is still the backbone of the financial sector even though companies have dumped millions into attempting to convert it to something new with limited success.

▲ cedws 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

For sure, we can debate the timeline, we can debate what language will replace C++. The way I read stefanos82's reply is that they don't believe C++ code will ever be rewritten, which is obviously not true.

COBOL running the financial sector is a myth in my opinion. There are still companies running aspects of their business on it, but calling it the 'backbone' is an overstatement. If you tallied up lines of code by language in the sector, I would wager COBOL makes up less than 1%.

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davidcbc 7 months ago | parent [-]

The backbone is a minority of the bones in the body too, but without it you're screwed.

My previous job was at one of the largest investment companies in the world, if the COBOL went away the company would collapse.

	▲	throwaway2037 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		What company?

▲ jamesfinlayson 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yep, I've worked for two companies where Fortran handles all of a major department's business - in both cases it was buried deep under layers of more modern stuff... but it was hugely risky to change it so it stayed.

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goku12 7 months ago | parent [-]

While the argument is generally correct, Fortran and COBOL aren't in the same league. Fortran is still being upgraded and has some use cases that are hard to achieve in another language. I've seen the Rust subreddit recommending use of old Fortran code with Rust, rather than rewriting it in Rust. Unlike most other languages like C++ and Rust, Fortran kept its scope mostly limited to numerical processing - making it still one of the best solutions to code highly parallel numerical algorithms in.

Fortran isn't surviving just because nobody wants to rewrite Fortran code. Unless you're talking about Fortran77 code.

	▲	jamesfinlayson 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Oh agreed - Fortran is much more alive than COBOL - but in both cases I think the Fortran had outstayed its welcome. I never saw one of the codebases but the one I did see was Fortran 77 I believe, and there were a lot of gotos and labels.

▲ throwaway2037 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

    > COBOL is still the backbone of the financial sector

Really? Is that commercial banks or ibanks? I think this is a myth.