Language · 1959–now · Foundations
COBOL
Batch processing lingua franca of mainframes. Despised in conferences; irreplaceable in unemployment and banking ledgers.
Why COBOL stuck
COBOL stuck because rewriting forty years of audited batch logic is a career-limiting migration with no upside. Admiration is near zero; adoption is enforced by law and fear. Every "COBOL crisis" headline ends with paying retirees triple market rate.
Compare with
Related
Platform · 1974–now
SQL / Relational
Declarative data that outlived every ORM fashion cycle. Postgres and friends keep winning by being boring.
Language · 1995–now
Java
Write once, run everywhere — then enterprise forever. Still the backbone of serious backend estates.
Language · 1998–2010
Visual Basic 6
Drag-and-drop business logic that powered SMB back offices worldwide. Microsoft killed it; the apps refused to die.