[vorg]

> active COBOL use that continues today [...] 220 Billion LOC

That 220b LOC is because most newly-written COBOL programs today are copied and pasted from some other large existing program, then some small parts of it changed. I know in one large corp I once worked at, a manager ordered that instead of a new code being created for a new customer in the program suite as was usually done, every program in the suite was cloned and the new customer's name was hard-coded into the strings in the program text. That manager got the new system up and running in record time and was well regarded by his peers. The maintenance programmers and computer operators got some extra job security in the years ahead too.