|
Off Topic Off Topic - General non-Corvette related discussion. |
|
Share | Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
05-23-2024, 3:19pm | #1 | ||||||
Barn Stall Owner #1120
NCM Supporter '20,'21
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: La Isla de Ira
Posts: 18,259
Thanks: 4,038
Thanked 19,045 Times in 8,461 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $1030760
|
The Plight Of Cobol Mainframe Programmers
Since there are a couple of you here...
|
||||||
The Following User Says Thank You to dvarapala For This Useful Post: |
05-23-2024, 3:23pm | #2 | ||||||
A Real Barner
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 7,836
Thanks: 2,042
Thanked 7,301 Times in 3,234 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $12721
|
Ain't nobody got time for dat!
I did some COBOL programming in High School and College. The last time I offered my services to try to do maintenance on some COBOL code, the folks managing the applications laughed at me. Then they spent 9 figures having all of their applications re-coded. |
||||||
05-23-2024, 3:50pm | #3 | ||||||
Barn Stall Owner #55
Island14 Cardio Team
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: A sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory
Posts: 14,921
Thanks: 3,791
Thanked 9,266 Times in 4,417 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $23236
|
They told me "that's what business uses", so I ran away like a mofo.
Programmed spacecraft with Fortran77 |
||||||
05-23-2024, 4:03pm | #4 | ||||||
A Real Barner
Join Date: Jul 2022
Posts: 4,259
Thanks: 656
Thanked 3,998 Times in 1,812 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $500
|
I've written 10s if not 100s of thousands of lines of COBOL code; I had dreams about it during Y2K when I remediated huge programs for the SEC.... Its not a career growth path and being a maintainer of a software base of legacy business systems is as exciting as being a night guard at a Burger King. I had to fire a couple of programmers that didn't want to do anything but DBase-III - 20 years after it was no longer mainstream.
A lot of nonsense in that video, COBOL is not some mysterious language, you can't figure out. I taught it to myself in a Navy project in the 80's and delivered several mission-critical systems using it in a few monhts. |
||||||
05-23-2024, 4:06pm | #5 | ||||||
VB Dad of the Year
RDBM Barn Stall Owner #9 Barn Raising I,II NCM Supporter '11,'12,'13,'14,'15,'16,'17,'19,'20,'21 Bantayan Kids '13,'14,'15,'17 GTMS ‘18
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Fort Myers
Posts: 37,066
Thanks: 10,458
Thanked 21,497 Times in 8,459 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $35999378
|
COBOL, Fortran, Basic, Assembly, I've done it all. Regardless of the language that one chooses to code in, the amazing thing is the thought process doesn't change. Even better, DATA hasn't changed in 30 years.
I got trapped in some older school technologies as the web came to life (Delphi and SQL Server), but I reinvented myself and emerged on the other side with great success. At the end of the day, evolve or die. |
||||||
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Datawiz For This Useful Post: |
05-23-2024, 4:11pm | #6 | |||||||
A Real Barner
Join Date: Jul 2022
Posts: 4,259
Thanks: 656
Thanked 3,998 Times in 1,812 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $500
|
Quote:
I will agree, logical-thinking, methodical programmers will be successful regardless of programming languages. |
|||||||
05-23-2024, 4:14pm | #7 | |||||||
VB Dad of the Year
RDBM Barn Stall Owner #9 Barn Raising I,II NCM Supporter '11,'12,'13,'14,'15,'16,'17,'19,'20,'21 Bantayan Kids '13,'14,'15,'17 GTMS ‘18
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Fort Myers
Posts: 37,066
Thanks: 10,458
Thanked 21,497 Times in 8,459 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $35999378
|
Quote:
And it's still evolving with no SQL data, and big data, but in general, data in today's world still follows the relational database paradigm. |
|||||||
The Following User Says Thank You to Datawiz For This Useful Post: |
05-23-2024, 5:22pm | #8 | ||||||
2020 Election Expert
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Big Sky Country... Where the men are men, the sheep are nervous, and the winters are LOOONG!!!
Posts: 32,820
Thanks: 22,599
Thanked 19,884 Times in 7,414 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $1134156
|
Gay
|
||||||
05-23-2024, 5:37pm | #9 | ||||||
Vette Barn Crew
Join Date: May 2024
Location: Make Believe Acres is the place to be...
Posts: 183
Thanks: 63
Thanked 75 Times in 45 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $500
|
Agreed, you either keep up with technology or get left behind in the dust very quickly. Calling yourself a "Cobol Programmer" nowadays is the equivalent to a "Quadrajet Expert"
|
||||||
05-23-2024, 5:50pm | #10 | |||||||
A Real Barner
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 7,836
Thanks: 2,042
Thanked 7,301 Times in 3,234 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $12721
|
Quote:
I went out of my way to keep my COBOL skills going in college for the same reason, they told me EVERYTHING in business would be COBOL based. I don't remember ever using it in the engineering world I entered out of college. If it wasn't FORTRAN, it was some kind of variant of BASIC, which I had learned about in high school from dicking around with it with friends. It was the early 2000s when my company found itself in need of COBOL programmers to work on maintenance of our financial software that ran a $5 billion company. There was no talking to management about it, they knew a shit load more about it than the several guys like me who saw the handwriting on the wall. Five years later, they were paying through the nose for developers in India that didn't understand our business at all for code modifications to keep pace with changing accounting rules, as well as NOT being truly competent in the language, so lots of mistakes were happening regularly. The next step was the pain and expense of buying a new "suite" of financial software that had to be heavily modified to address the intricacies of our business on an "emergency" basis. The mis-management of the situation caused by senior executive's arrogant views and failure to recognize even the basics of the problem, cost our shareholders literally billions of dollars. |
|||||||
05-23-2024, 5:51pm | #11 | ||||||
A Real Barner
Join Date: Jul 2022
Posts: 4,259
Thanks: 656
Thanked 3,998 Times in 1,812 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $500
|
All of the flight simulators I programmed at Oceana Naval Air Station were FORTRAN; I get real adept with it...
|
||||||
05-23-2024, 7:21pm | #12 | ||||||
A Real Barner
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Lakeland/FL
Posts: 2,626
Thanks: 130
Thanked 616 Times in 307 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $500
|
I've been doing Cobol for 32 years now. All our mainframe applications are scheduled for decommission. The one that I'm the Subject Matter Expert on will be fully migrated to server based this November. Hope to get laid off in the next couple of years and get my severance package.
It may still drag out 3 to 4 years.. |
||||||
05-23-2024, 7:29pm | #13 | |||||||
Barn Stall Owner #55
Island14 Cardio Team
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: A sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory
Posts: 14,921
Thanks: 3,791
Thanked 9,266 Times in 4,417 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $23236
|
Quote:
|
|||||||
05-23-2024, 7:34pm | #14 | ||||||
Barn Stall Owner #112
Join Date: Apr 2022
Location: The Blue Ridge Mountains
Posts: 18,287
Thanks: 7,269
Thanked 5,016 Times in 2,951 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $500
|
Lowes store brand Cobalt tools are decent tools.
|
||||||
05-23-2024, 7:47pm | #15 | ||||||
Vette Barn Crew
|
I had to hire a Vax programmer...gold mine if you can still do it.
|
||||||
05-23-2024, 7:51pm | #16 | ||||||
A Real Barner
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Lakeland/FL
Posts: 2,626
Thanks: 130
Thanked 616 Times in 307 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $500
|
I had to take an IQ test for my 2nd Cobol job that I had. That was common practice back then.
I'm aware of the issues with periods in Cobol. When I took over the system. I eliminate all periods but one period per section and added all scope delimiters like END-IF. This prevented the issue with missing periods or one too many periods. In 20 years in my current job, my code never caused any issues. Thar's why they kept me for 20 years. |
||||||
05-23-2024, 8:06pm | #17 | ||||||
A Real Barner
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Lakeland/FL
Posts: 2,626
Thanks: 130
Thanked 616 Times in 307 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $500
|
It is critical to decommission those systems within the next 10 years as virtually all the Cobol programmers will be retired by then.
|
||||||
05-23-2024, 10:05pm | #18 | ||||||
Barn Stall Owner #THX1138
Join Date: May 2011
Location: South of San Antonio
Posts: 2,868
Thanks: 1,072
Thanked 2,223 Times in 1,005 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $1322
|
And I always thought that Cobol programmers were those guys on BSG that programmed the original Cylons. huh.
|
||||||
05-25-2024, 8:59am | #19 | ||||||
Vette Barn Crew
Join Date: Dec 2019
Location: Lake Michigan's South Shore
Posts: 888
Thanks: 84
Thanked 836 Times in 397 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $1002620
|
|
||||||
05-25-2024, 9:01am | #20 | ||||||
Vette Barn Crew
Join Date: Dec 2019
Location: Lake Michigan's South Shore
Posts: 888
Thanks: 84
Thanked 836 Times in 397 Posts
Gameroom Barn Bucks: $1002620
|
|
||||||
|
|
Support the Barn: |
Download the Mobile App; |
Follow us on Facebook: |
||