[opsunit]

Having worked on the PL/1 and Assembler that formed the core accounting systems of a bank: yes.

Not only did I have source control I had flow diagrams of the entire system for all points in the chain. My code reviews had me doing line-by-line justifications. I wrote tests.

Just because the technology and practitioners are old it doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing.

Generally they invented whatever "you" are reinventing the first time around.

[kimi]

COBOL was used for more mundane tasks - a lot of data loading, formatting, batches of all kinds. Not all of which seemed so important when they were written, but that ended up being a plug nobody wants to take the risk of disconnecting.....

[coldtea]

If they're still run, they're still important if not crucial.

I don't think they do data loading and batch processing on stuff they don't need.

[kimi]

Exactly. But sometimes they were built as a "quick patch, we'll do this right later" and then improved and changed and.... you see the picture.

[wtetzner]

> Just because the technology and practitioners are old it doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that. It's more that many people now don't do a good job with that stuff, so I was curious if it would have been better then.