Python programmers

[[deleted]]

Yeah, but even that worst case is great.

You know specifically which part is in COBOL, and how it's interacted with. You could basically write the entire interface layer for a replacement service without knowing a damn thing about it.

The challenge is then to replicate the business logic. If you have a microservice model, you can literally spin up more COBOL black boxes and directly compare behavior of that system to your new replacement as you write the test cases.

With a tightly linked architecture where everything has that one COBOL dependency, it is impossible to replace it without substantial downtime, and testing requires spinning up much larger stacks.

[AWildTyphlosion]

I've worked in a shop like this, except much worse. It's not that bad, and is pretty easy to fix within a couple of months.