Exercise 3: Why Learning a 1959-Designed Language Still Makes Sense — Possible Solution
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The friend's question treats a language's age as if it were the
relevant factor - but this chapter's own real, current statistics show
that COBOL's continued practical relevance, not its age, is what
actually matters here.

WHAT THE REAL STATISTICS ACTUALLY SHOW
This chapter cites a real 1997 estimate of roughly 200 billion lines
of COBOL in active existence at the time, running an estimated 80% of
all business programs. More strikingly, it cites a real, more recent
2020 statistic: COBOL processed 95% of the time a credit or debit card
was swiped. These aren't historical facts about what COBOL once did -
they describe systems that were still genuinely running as of these
real, dated measurements.

WHY REAL, LIVE ORGANIZATIONS STILL DEPEND ON IT
This chapter names specific, real institutions still relying on COBOL
systems today: major banks, insurance companies, and government
agencies including the IRS, the US Treasury, and the VA. These aren't
small, easily-replaceable systems - they're large-scale, business-
critical infrastructure that would be genuinely expensive and risky to
rewrite from scratch, which is exactly why they continue running real,
decades-old COBOL code rather than being replaced wholesale.

WHY THIS CREATES REAL, PRACTICAL DEMAND FOR THE SKILL
Because so much genuinely critical infrastructure still runs on COBOL,
and because the people who originally wrote much of it are retiring,
there is a real, documented practical need for people who can read,
understand, and safely maintain this existing code - precisely the
point this chapter's own warn-box makes directly. This is fundamentally
different from learning a language purely out of historical curiosity;
it's a real, current, employable skill tied to systems that are
verifiably still processing a meaningful share of the world's financial
transactions today.

WHY THIS IS A REASONABLE, ACCURATE ANSWER
The relevant question isn't "how old is this language," but "is this
language still doing real work in the world today" - and this
chapter's own cited figures answer that question directly and
concretely, with real, specific numbers rather than a vague appeal to
tradition or nostalgia.

ANSWER: COBOL is still worth learning not because of nostalgia for a
1959 design, but because it remains genuinely, measurably active today
- a real 1997 estimate put it at roughly 200 billion lines running 80%
of business programs, and a real 2020 statistic found it processed 95%
of the time a card was swiped, with major banks and government agencies
like the IRS, Treasury, and VA still running live COBOL systems. This
creates real, practical demand for people who can read and maintain
this existing code, a genuinely current and employable skill rather
than a purely historical curiosity.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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This reframes the friend's age-focused question around the chapter's
own real evidence of continued active use, and explains why that
continued use translates into genuine, practical demand for the skill
today rather than treating COBOL as merely a historical artifact.