Re: There must be a better way to build these systems
There are places in the US which still teach COBOL.
Any competent programmer can learn COBOL. The IT labor market is tight, but it's not that tight. And there are plenty of people who could use a better job and would be capable of learning how to maintain a big COBOL back-office application. It's not trivial, but it's not rocket science either.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
