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Well, I've searched extensively, and the only credible source I can find for that statement is from Gartner Group, in 1997. Even then it is qualified to refer to Business code.
COMPUTER WORLD had one beginning "I would say that more than half"..., but that isn't exactly credible, and dated from 1985.
I'll admit COBOL code is often freakishly long-lived, but I think its no longer as ubiquitous as it once was. It doesn't even make it the top 50 of most programming language popularity indexes (TiOBE, Stack Overflow, etc.). Some of that may due to the methodology of the measures.
Large existing systems keep using COBOL, simply because its too much effort to port it - and its also most modern languages have somewhat different design goals.
Of course, there's also the contributing factor that it would frequently take 50 lines of COBOL to express what could be 10 lines in most languages.
Even excluding projects that never made it to production, I still believe that C/C++ have probably passed COBOL a while ago.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Kent Sharkey wrote: “THAT IS NOT DEAD WHICH CAN ETERNAL LIE, AND WITH STRANGE AEONS EVEN DEATH MAY DIE."
FTFY
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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PICky PICky... 
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Project Westminster makes it simple for you to bring existing Hosted Web Apps to Windows 10. "England swings like a pendulum do "
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This morning, several news outlets gave voice to an extraordinary claim: Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where the spacecraft Philae awoke last month, could be home to alien life. tl;dr: Nope. Nada. NBL. Uh uh.
So you know there's a conspiracy!
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are the result of microbial organisms
Oh BFD
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Developer demand for Ruby and Rails remain high, but the specific ways both language and framework shine (or don't) are crucial to know. "Some may say Ruby is a bad rip-off of Lisp or Smalltalk, and I admit that."
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One FCC commissioner appears to think that we don't, but perhaps he doesn't understand the question. Maslow says no, I say yes.
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Tomayto, tomahto, potayto, potahto.
No, we don't actually "need" the internet. But it's damn nice to have. Makes a lot of life much easier. Makes it easier for the criminals, too, I suppose.
#SupportHeForShe If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
Only 2 things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Basically proliferates bad ideas through the entire world. Nope. Don't need it. I never use it.
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No - but we'd need more post-it notes (Twitter), fridge magnets (Facebook) and 'erm cards stuck in public phone booths (Craigslist)
Also I'd need to get my own my own cat to watch...
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Without reading the article, the answer is simple: No, we don't need it. Just like cars, trains, planes, phones, washing machines, dishwasher, hairdryer, power plants, etc. There was a time when all of this stuff didn't exist and humans were still able to manage their lives in some way, as far back as the Stone Age and earlier. All this stuff just makes our lives easier (unforunately, it doesn't come for free, so we eventually have to deal with a the side-effects at some point.) The crux is: As soon as some technical advancement is there, we lose the ability to live without it. You don't need to know how to make a fire anymore, you got matches or a lighter.
The more interesting question should be: Are we depending too much on the Internet.
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FIorian Schneidereit wrote: The more interesting question should be: Are we depending too much on the Internet.
I asked Siri - she said no. (Although I did hear a bit of a sinister chuckle...)
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Maybe I'm gonna ask Cortana what she thinks about it... but I guess she will keep quiet and only come up with lame web search results. 
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Quote: You don't need to know how to make a fire anymore, you got matches or a lighter.
You don't need good grammar anymore; you have a spelling or grammar checker.
LOL #GrammarPolice
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Brian C Hart wrote:
You don't need good grammar anymore; you have a spelling or grammar checker.
Not exactly, most of the time I rely on try and error, and hope people understand what I mean. As a non-native English speaker, the foreigner excuse is on my side anyways. 
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I love the last comment (currently) on the original article, accusing the writer of authoring a "marxist rant".
There was a poll in the US a few years back, that asked where the quote "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" came from. The majority of respondents thought it came from the American Constitution!
Its funny how people see Marxism everywhere, while remaining totally ignorant of it.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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I saw a great response to this at another website. The gist of it was "Secretary Syndrome".
This guy (and the people he knows) probably doesn't use the internet all that much, so he thinks nobody relies on it for much of anything besides cat videos. Here's the key, though: even though he himself may rarely use the internet, the people that work for him and prepare all of his materials for him absolutely use the internet for that.
It's also why a rich guy who's always had a chauffeur all his life won't understand the big deal about self-driving cars.
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Perhaps we don't need money either... you know we can all just work together, and trade sheep for cows, apples for oranges... What are these paper notes with some random dude on it anyways...
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It may sound counter-intuitive to say that developers shouldn’t perform testing on the products they produce. "You're holding it wrong"
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There is testing and there is testing (using Eva Green accent when James Bond find out she ordered a real tux for him).
We (developers) do spot testing when doing code reviews (mostly when checking bug fix code).
Black box testing is done by the QA department (but still can be reproduced by the development team)
I'd rather be phishing!
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Who would have thought it - a man who runs a company[^] supplying outsourced software testing services thinks that people should use software testing services.
(I happen to agree somewhat with the article but do think SD Times could have been more up-front with a disclaimer of interest)
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Yeah, I considered mentioning that in the blurb. Not sure why I didn't, actually. I blame Shane.
TTFN - Kent
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