C'mon you old Farts If you know COBOL You're Essential!

a reply to: projectvxn

You think writing code in machine is tough? Try deciphering the function with just machine code! I give any attempt at that a 10% chance of success, 20% if you're already intimately familiar with the processor.

That's with an embedded processor... I cannot imagine trying to reverse engineer something like Word or Photoshop!

TheRedneck

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: Gothmog

I wonder if many state unemployment systems still use reels of tape for storing data?

None , most likely .
You ought to see mainframes today....

LOL!

originally posted by: AnonyMason
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. ABOVETOPSECRET

PERFORM.
DISPLAY 'THERE IS A LOT OF OLD CODER GEEKS AROUND ATS.'
END-PERFORM

I hate COBOL.

IT guys are the only ones with enough time on their hands to be sitting on ATS all day.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Our Illinois Unemployment Department said in a conference call today, that due to the "antiquated" nature of the system, it will be 7 weeks before code is written that allows Self-Employed, Contract Workers, etc.. to be paid the weekly compensation mandated by Congress in the $2.2 Trillion Covid-19 bill.

Those classes of workers have never been eligible for Illinois unemployment/underemployment payments before.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Yeah, no. I'm not interested in quarantine due to code.

Understand that these COBOL applications, and their operating systems are completely virtualized, to get rid of slow hardware. Most run under VMWare on Linux and the original systems have no idea that they are not running in their native environment.

Knowing .. say VMS and COBOL, are required to understand how to compile and link Humpty Dumpty back together again, but we do not have to write our modifications in COBOL. Instead, we will use a cross-language interpreter, and we can write in C, C++ and have it generate a COBOL source which then gets natively compiled in the virtual machine using the original systems build tools.

If you get that, then you understand the tasks at hand.

a reply to: charlyv

Knowing .. say VMS and COBOL, are required to understand how to compile and link Humpty Dumpty back together again, but we do not have to write our modifications in COBOL. Instead, we will use a cross-language interpreter, and we can write in C, C++ and have it generate a COBOL source which then gets natively compiled in the virtual machine using the original systems build tools.

Cool, reminds me of my two Chinese friends that were from different regions, and couldn’t understand each other. They got over it by speaking broken English to each other.

Mehh...

1: Your spelling it wrong....It KOBOL
2: Its the planet were all mankind sprung..
were Gods and men lived together...
3: All of this have happend before
and all of this WILL happen again....

a reply to: AutomateThis1

Especially IT guys that are working from home, HA!

a reply to: carewemust

Those classes of workers have never been eligible for Illinois unemployment/underemployment payments before.

I read somewhere that professional gamblers will be eligible for unemployment too. Crazy times.

originally posted by: AnonyMason
a reply to: AutomateThis1

Especially IT guys that are working from home, HA!

Lucky bastards lol. That's the only thing I miss about it. Making $30-$40 an hour to sit in my underwear and watch TV.

Only time I had to work was when I got a message from some technician asking why his product is getting chopped into a million pieces lol.

It's always the PLCs fault, and everything is a PLC to mechanics.

originally posted by: 0zzymand0s
a reply to: JAGStorm

Weren't these idiots supposed to "modernize" their systems away from COBOL after Y2K? That's 20+ years of criminally negligent "public service" IMO.

There's nothing wrong with COBOL, and lots of legacy systems still use it. The y2k problem wasn't COBOL, it was the date routines that were etched in silicon, and the databases that were all using 2 digit years.

One of the other ironies of the IT world is system architecture.

When computers were first created they data-center centric, as in mainframe type environments. Then, along came the 'Personal Computer' (PC) in the early to mid-'70's, which gave rise to the likes of Micro-shaft and Apple-gack. Compute and storage quickly moved away from the data-center to the desktop. Now, with the tidal wave of virtualization, we are seeing the exact opposite occur, compute and storage is moving back to the data center with hyper-converged architectures and virtualized everything (servers, applications, thin clients, etc.).

I kind of chuckle inside when all the IT world tries to come up with fancy new names for this trend, seemingly to avoid saying the word "mainframe", and to differentiate themselves from the days of old, like they're something special.

"It's not a mainframe, dammit!! It's...It's...It's a 'hyper-converged' architecture running a 'virtualized environment' with built-in storage!! It's V-Sphere, stupid! It's NOT a mainframe!"

a reply to: JAGStorm

An 11 year old can also learn COBOL so what's the big deal?

That is a really goofy article. Read it again slowly. They were updating, but the covid, so what? So they ask for people to help them update? That is ridiculous CommieNewsNet writing right there dontcha know.

What good does it do to ask for help, because you know, the virus.

They had to stop because the virus. Now they want to start again but the virus, no the old language, oh no the virus.

CNN is trash. You should see the 5G articles their trashy writes scribble.

If you want to be more disgusted by Democrats, this is mostly due to them demanding the most liberal of things during budget time.

More funding for BLM, LGBTQ, foreign aid before infrastructure

Man. When I took my very first programming course last century (I ended up hating programming), they started you off with Turbo Pascal. Our instructor hated every language except TP. She hated C++, VB, and especially COBOL. Said we'd never, ever need to learn COBOL or FORTRAN and fell to her knees, bowed her head, and prayed to some strange god that no one would ever have to use COBOL again. Now look.

originally posted by: Phage
Since this thread is bound to turn into an off topic coder fest:

Speaking of stacks, who here has used FORTH?

I have. That was in the 80s. It was the strangest language and so different from what I worked with at the time (assembler). If I look hard enough, I bet I still have the book I used to learn it.

a reply to: 4003fireglo
Hopefully her TrumpBux check is delayed then.

PS If I'm so essential offer me more than someone who speeds up cat videos

Science at its best!
I'm sure even "farts" that could use "COBOL", couldn't sharpen a knife or bait a hook to feed themselves, without "COBAL". F'n educated idiots.
God forbid, "public servants", would actually have to strain themselves with pen and paper.

A coworker enlightened me with this masterful project this afternoon...

github.com...