[FrustratedMonky]

I'm always hearing that Cobol programmers get high salaries, because they are so rare.

Did this project generate any flood of offers for work?

[z3t4]

It's not Cobol programmers that are rare, it's a shortage of people that can understand the business logic. Cobol is often used in very complicated business operations.

[TypingOutBugs]

Not because it’s necessarily more suited for those business operations, but the complexity and risk of refactoring means it remains in COBOL

[elcapitan]

As others have pointed out, probably more the intricacies of the existing business logic, plus the understanding of the mainframe systems that it usually runs on. Otherwise you could just build a cross compiler and call it day.

[Suppafly]

>As others have pointed out, probably more the intricacies of the existing business logic, plus the understanding of the mainframe systems that it usually runs on.

Honestly just knowing COBOL is how you get your foot into a well paying job where you learn that stuff from the old timers.

[thijsvandien]

Those who do are valued not for their programming skills but their knowledge of the (very complex, largely undocumented) system and its business environment.