Do you know COBOL? New Jersey wants you

[jtbell]

Lots of people are unemployed because of the coronavirus, they're applying for unemployment benefits, and the state's ancient mainframe COBOL systems are straining under the load.

NJ seeking help from COBOL programmers in Coronavirus fight (The Hill)

 

[anorlunda]

Sigh, they'll never learn. Unless you are an IT company, IT is almost never viewed as strategic, or a priority. IT management is almost never on the career path to CEO.

 

[jedishrfu]

So true, most IBM executives came up from the sales ranks to become CEO. Those that were engineers would do a stint in marketing to get the chance to rise that high.

 

[PeroK]

Unless you are an IT company, IT is almost never viewed as strategic, or a priority.

That's a good one. The IT in an IT company is the worst of all. The management don't want to do it at all because it deflects resources that could be revenue earning to non-profit internal IT management. The best people are reserved for the clients' IT systems! Internal IT projects are the lowest priority.

I worked in IT services and I proposed once that we outsource our own internal IT. There was a bit of support for the idea, but ultimately (for the obvious reason) it was politically unacceptable.

The funniest thing was that we didn't even implement our favourite systems inhouse, as a sort of showpiece or flagship installation. That I never understood. We implemented finance systems for lots of clients, but our own internal finance system was hosted in a cupboard in the CFO's office!

"Cobbler's children" was all the senior people would say if pressed on these matters.

 

[anorlunda]

That's a good one. The IT in an IT company is the worst of all.

LOL. Of course you're right, and you're wrong. Google and Amazon earn their income from their IT.

I'm defining IT as all their computing, not just running payroll.

 

[sysprog]

They don't need more COBOL programmers unless they have to update the application code to provide new functionality. Their problems are not due to the systems being antiquated. Your TI-83 calculator code is old and yet it still gives the right answer every time. When you go to a brand-new ATM to get cash from your card, it's almost certain that some compiled object code originated from COBOL will be running. If they're having workload management problems due to suddenly severely increased demand, then they need guys and gals who understand IBM mainframe systems, and they can call IBM and get more capacity and guys and gals to implement it.

 

[member 656954]

It's bad enough being in lock down, imagine being in lock down and having to shift through the rubble of decades of COBOL code trying to figure out the intent of programmers mapping 1960's business needs into punch card driven DevOps

 

[PeroK]

LOL. Of course you're right, and you're wrong. Google and Amazon earn their income from their IT.

That's very different, though. Amazon is a retailer, not an IT company. Google is a bit different.

The issue for a major bank, say, that runs a lot of its back-office on COBOL is what is the benefit of modernising? Their internal back-office systems are not what they are selling. They are selling banking services and IT that directly supports those services would be a priority, but not replacing the back-office systems.

A recurring theme for major clients I saw was that they had a large, legacy IT infrastructure that did the job and attempts to replace it were fraught. And, in many ways, these older systems were underestimated - especially in terms of the breadth and depth of their core functionality.

There were valid reasons for modernising but there were often equally valid reasons for continuing to build around the legacy infrastructure.

Suffice it to say that I never shared the disdain for legacy systems that was widespread in the IT industry!

 

[sysprog]

I reject the use of the term 'legacy' for systems that are still operational -- e.g. the fact that sugar became available in boxes of cubes did not make bags of granulated cane sugar into a 'legacy' sucrose delivery system.

 

[member 656954]

A recurring theme for major clients I saw was that they had a large, legacy IT infrastructure that did the job and attempts to replace it were fraught.

Very true. I was consulting to an insurance company five years ago that wanted to hollow out an old COBOL system with a new low-code platform when the issue of knowledge of the code came up. Fortunately, the guy who oversaw the original dev was surprisingly still working there - and by happenstance was a few desks over from the meeting room we were in at the time - but even with access to the subject matter expert it was a tens of millions of $$ project.

And that was just one of their core apps!

They vacillated on approving the budget and that COBOL code is still running...

 

[sysprog]

Very true.
$\dots$
They vacillated on approving the budget and that COBOL code is still running...

Sometimes something obvious to me is completely lost on others, and sometimes something that other people can see readily is solidly in one of my blind spots; even so, I've more than once changed a few lines of code, or stood aside while another person wrote a few dozen lines based on my pointing out that this way is stupid and that way is clean, and we saved a company the multi-million cost of a serious rewrite.

 

[Mark44]

Amazon is a retailer, not an IT company.

AWS is not a retail commodity -- it's a service they provide to retailers, but I would classify it as IT rather than retail.

 

[PeterDonis]

AWS is not a retail commodity -- it's a service

A service sold over the Internet is a retail commodity. That's basically the underlying insight of AWS and other "cloud" services.

The interesting question is whether Amazon's own internal IT functions make use of the same services. AFAIK, for the most part they do. I don't know if that makes them an "IT" company, but it would seem to differentiate them from companies that sell IT services that they don't themselves use.

 

[sysprog]

AWS is not a retail commodity -- it's a service they provide to retailers, but I would classify it as IT rather than retail.

It's a retailing service commodity that is rented or sold to retailers as itself at retail -- you and @PeroK and @PeterDonis seem to me to be more in agreement here than in disagreement, but you senior-to-me-here guys don't need me to keep the peace.

 

[anorlunda]

During Y2K remediation we saw so many instances of old code whose purpose and function was lost in generations past. Over the years, they added band aid after band aid until the kernel was wrapped in an onion like structure. Even after Y2K, they still continue with more layers of band aids.

Today's story about New Jersey is more of the same. When there is an emergency, add a new band aid. When there is no emergency, don't speak about its existence.

It is a criminal offense for a programmer to install a time bomb that makes code self destruct after a period of time. It makes me wonder if it ought not be a crime.

 

[sysprog]

...

It is a criminal offense for a programmer to install a time bomb that makes code self destruct after a period of time. It makes me wonder if it ought not be a crime.

Well, if you call it a criminal offense, you're calling it a crime. When I was a kid I knew a consultant who included potential function failure time dependency because some bankers sometimes would smugly refuse to pay him after he'd written the code -- as in we're the bank and you're just a guy -- it costs too much to sue us. Almost every client paid him rightfully and after he got paid he'd drop by and remove the date code. I asked him what if he perished in some calamity. He said oh then they'll hire some guy like you to fix it but you should insist on being paid in advance.

 

[PeroK]

AWS is not a retail commodity -- it's a service they provide to retailers, but I would classify it as IT rather than retail.

You're right that Amazon has diversified into providing IT services.

 

[Dullard]

@sysprog:

Your story reminds me:

I was working with a PV manufacturer in China. My company built the vacuum/deposition equipment, but another (Taiwanese) company was doing the actual 'recipe' part of the operation. I got a copy of the code on the system for review (not easy...), and flew home from China to the U.S., where (after a long nap) I stared to seriously review it. The Taiwanese programmer/PV genius (not fully paid) had written code which:

At a specified future time: Copied a completely bogus program from a CF card into the PLC memory (with bogus recipe parameters) And deleted any evidence of it's existence. Indirect addressing is a biatch.

The 'bogus' program made what was (effectively) tinted glass (not PV panels)

I called my Chinese Benefactor. I flew to China, removed the 'grenade,' and flew home. In 40 Hrs. Round Trip. Really.

IP theft isn't just a 'risk' of doing business in China - It's the geography.