Languages That Refuse to Die

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Developers love shiny things. Each year, a new framework promises faster builds, cleaner syntax, or a revolution in productivity. Yet, while TikTok trends fade in weeks, some programming languages have been quietly running mission-critical systems for decades — and they’re still here in 2025.

COBOL, Fortran, and Erlang don’t dominate Twitter debates, but they power banks, airlines, and telecom networks you use daily. The truth is: software doesn’t vanish just because Hacker News lost interest. These “legacy” languages stick around because they solve problems few others can match — reliably, predictably, and at massive scale.

Let’s break down why they’re still in play.

COBOL: The Banking Backbone

First released in 1959, COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) was designed for business data processing. Over sixty years later, it remains the language of choice for financial institutions and government systems. Why?

• Stability at Scale: COBOL can handle millions of daily transactions without blinking. In banking, downtime means disaster — and COBOL has proven itself under decades of stress.

• Sheer Inertia: An estimated 220 billion lines of COBOL code are still running today. Rewriting or migrating those systems would cost billions and introduce risk.

• Talent Shortage = Opportunity: Ironically, the scarcity of COBOL programmers has increased demand for those who can maintain it. Younger developers stepping into this space often find lucrative roles.

In short: COBOL isn’t sexy, but it’s the plumbing of global finance. And until someone successfully rewires that plumbing, it isn’t going anywhere.

Fortran: The Scientific Workhorse

If COBOL is the banker, Fortran is the scientist. Created in 1957, Fortran (Formula Translation) was the first high-level programming language and has been the bedrock of scientific computing, weather forecasting, and high-performance simulations.

• Numerical Power: Fortran is still one of the fastest languages for heavy numerical computation. Modern versions (Fortran 2008, Fortran 2018) continue to optimize for performance on supercomputers.

• Legacy Code = Living Code: Climate models, nuclear simulations, and aerospace calculations are still written in Fortran. Migrating decades of mathematical libraries isn’t practical — they’re too specialized and battle-tested.

• Future-Proofed: Many of the world’s top supercomputers still support and optimize for Fortran. For researchers who need precision and speed, Python often acts as a wrapper — but the underlying heavy lifting is Fortran.

Fortran may not be the first choice for a startup hackathon, but in scientific research, it remains the language of trust.

Erlang: The Telecom Titan

Fast forward to 1986, when Ericsson developed Erlang to handle the brutal demands of telecommunications systems. Its niche? Building fault-tolerant, massively concurrent applications.

• Concurrency First: Erlang’s actor model makes it easy to run thousands of lightweight processes. In a world of distributed systems, this is pure gold.

• Fault Tolerance: Erlang was built with the assumption that things will fail. “Let it crash” isn’t a meme — it’s a design philosophy. Systems restart seamlessly without human intervention.

• Legacy into Modern: WhatsApp famously ran on a tiny engineering team thanks to Erlang’s efficiency, supporting hundreds of millions of users with minimal infrastructure. Even in 2025, Erlang and its descendant Elixir are powering messaging apps, telecom infrastructure, and real-time systems.

Erlang never sought mainstream glory. Instead, it thrives where reliability matters most.

Why These Languages Endure

So why haven’t we just “moved on”? Three recurring reasons:

1. Proven Reliability: These languages have decades of trust. You don’t rip out what isn’t broken, especially in finance, science, or communications.

2. Specialized Domains: COBOL, Fortran, and Erlang each serve niches where they outperform alternatives. General-purpose languages can’t always replace them.

3. Economic Reality: Rewriting core systems is risky, expensive, and time-consuming. Businesses often decide it’s smarter to maintain and extend what works.

Lessons for Modern Developers

Even if you never write a line of COBOL or Fortran, their longevity offers lessons:

• Durability > Hype: The tools that last are the ones that solve real, critical problems.

• Know Your Domain: The best language isn’t the “coolest” one, it’s the one that fits the job.

• Old ≠ Obsolete: Just because a language is older than your parents doesn’t mean it isn’t powering the future.

As developers, we live in a paradox: obsessed with new tech, yet surrounded by decades-old systems we rely on daily. The next time you check your bank balance, track a storm, or send a WhatsApp message — remember, there’s a good chance COBOL, Fortran, or Erlang helped make it possible.

Final Thought: Languages don’t die just because they fall out of fashion. They die when they stop being useful. And these three? They’re still quietly proving their worth in 2025.

Until next time,
— Nullpointer Club Team