[HN Gopher] COBOL Programmers Answer Call to Shore Up Unemployme...
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COBOL Programmers Answer Call to Shore Up Unemployment Benefits
Systems
Author : furcyd
Score : 61 points
Date : 2020-04-10 21:59 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| codenesium wrote:
| I worked in COBOL at an internship and this was around 2012. This
| system runs over 1000 court systems in the U.S. It's graphical
| too and sort of looks like vb6 on the frontend. It was a
| nightmare to work in even though the team was disciplined and
| took care of the codebase. You can't write 10k line programs with
| all global variables and have something that's nice to work on.
| marpstar wrote:
| AcuCOBOL? I used AcuCOBOL at my internship back in 2009-2010 to
| build VB6-style forms with COBOL.
| newprint wrote:
| Just put the entire COBOL source code on the github and let us
| rework it in the Java or C# and be done with this abomination.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| Or just put it on github... might find people interested in
| helping without a full rewrite.
| cable2600 wrote:
| Someone invent a COBOL to Python converter to get rid of these
| old dinosaurs IBM Mainframes.
| nimih wrote:
| Given that the Python foundation has been trying to get folks
| to run a python-to-python converter for more than a decade and
| have not completely succeeded, I'm skeptical that an AST
| transformer is really sufficient for migrating off those legacy
| systems.
|
| More constructively, having worked on a (close to decade-long,
| by the time I joined) project to migrate a financial
| institution's business logic off an IBM mainframe onto more
| modern architecture, my main takeaway was that these systems
| have worked pretty darn well for decades with relatively little
| maintenance. The reluctance of companies to migrate god-knows-
| how-much data, business rules, and institutional knowledge
| (e.g. of data entry folks, business-level administrators who
| have to navigate these systems to do their job, etc) off a
| time-tested system they trust at massive expense, is completely
| understandable.
| klodolph wrote:
| This is a misunderstanding of the problem. It's not the fact
| that it's COBOL, per se, that's the problem. The issue is with
| making changes to an entire system. A program written in COBOL
| may be at the center of that system, but that program is only
| one part of it.
| [deleted]
| triska wrote:
| COBOL can be a real pleasure to use.
|
| For instance, it allows programmers to quickly create user
| interfaces by declaratively describing them, in a so called
| SCREEN SECTION.
|
| The resulting interfaces are very efficient for text entry, and
| allow users to quickly get a lot of work done. The interaction is
| so much more efficient than what we are used to with current
| technologies that it can barely be described or thought about in
| today's terms.
|
| Regarding the underlying theme of legacy systems, here is an
| interesting presentation by Jonathan Blow, citing various
| examples of earlier civilizations losing access to technologies
| they once had:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
|
| I think in terms of user interfaces, we are on a downward path in
| several important ways, and I highly recommend checking out
| earlier technologies that were in many ways an improvement over
| what we are working with today.
| wglb wrote:
| The only way I found COBOL palatable was to spend the better
| part of a year programming in RPG III first.
| tantalor wrote:
| > quickly create user interfaces by declaratively describing
| them
|
| > everything can be accessed using only the keyboard
|
| Sounds like plain old html forms.
| triska wrote:
| Yes, at least in some ways, HTML forms could have been that
| way, but in practice, they are not:
|
| For one thing, and this is important, with every browser I
| tried, I get periodically interrupted by messages that the
| browser displays and that are not part of the form. Just
| recently, I was again asked for security updates by the
| browser. Sometimes when opening a form it gets prefilled by
| the browser, sometimes not, and sometimes only some of the
| fields. Some other times I get asked whether the browser
| should translate the form. Sometimes it asks me whether some
| fields should be prefilled. Sometimes the browser asks me at
| unpredictable times whether I would now like to restart it.
|
| An important prerequisite for getting a lot of work done is
| for the system to behave completely consistently and
| predictably, and not to interfere with unrelated messages,
| questions, alarms etc. This is also very important for
| training new users, writing teaching material etc.
|
| Another important point, and that is very critical as well,
| is latency: Just recently, I typed text into my browser, and
| it stalled. Only after a few moments, the text I entered
| appeared.
|
| I never had such issues with COBOL applications. Today, we
| can barely even imagine applications that are usable in this
| sense, because we have gradually accepted deterioration in
| user interfaces that would have been completely unacceptable,
| even unthinkable, just a few decades ago.
| downerending wrote:
| I've not used this, but it reminds me some of the UI of early
| Lotus 1-2-3 (in text, no GUI). It was amazingly intuitive and
| easy to navigate, even without a mouse.
|
| Modern web apps, each unique and confusing, with no reliable
| way to move focus around and with bizarre text entry
| "improvements", would have made the Admiral weep.
| scythe wrote:
| >For instance, it allows programmers to quickly create user
| interfaces by declaratively describing them, in a so called
| SCREEN SECTION.
|
| >The resulting interfaces are very efficient for text entry,
| and allow users to quickly get a lot of work done. The
| interaction is so much more efficient than what we are used to
| with current technologies that it can barely be described or
| thought about in today's terms.
|
| It's not common anymore, but Unix clones still have dialog(1):
|
| https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=dialog
| adzm wrote:
| I was blown away by some reporting systems in COBOL that were
| surprisingly understandable and simple.
| apfsx wrote:
| Do you have a video that shows an example of this text entry
| system? I'm interested in seeing this.
| triska wrote:
| Sometimes I see it on terminals for instance when checking
| into a hotel, opening an account in a bank, booking a flight,
| interacting with the tax administration etc.
|
| These forms look for example like this:
|
| https://sourceforge.net/p/cobcurses/screenshot/147172.jpg
|
| One important point that makes them so efficient to use is
| that everything can be accessed using only the keyboard.
|
| For my personal use, I have simulated such forms using Emacs,
| and especially its _Widget Library_ :
|
| https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/widget.h.
| ..
|
| This is a bit similar to what you get with a SCREEN SECTION
| in COBOL.
| userbinator wrote:
| Anyone who has used the BIOS setup function of a PC before
| the EFI bloat took over will find that interface familiar,
| it's certainly easy to use and quite efficient.
|
| Here's an example screenshot:
| http://www.buildeasypc.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2011/11/step12...
| epc wrote:
| Could also be ISPF dialogs
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISPF, https://www.ibm.com/su
| pport/knowledgecenter/zosbasics/com.ib...).
| Zenst wrote:
| In the early 80's we had terminals (Newberry being one brand
| iirc)that would talk to the mainframe and in this instance a
| Honeywell Bull DPS8 range and these terminals had block mode,
| so could just type out using the cursor keys to navigate and
| key in all your code or feild attributes as you would for a
| transactional screen layout input interface. Then having
| effectly edited and dealt with localy, could hit send into
| the edit buffer and covered much WYSWYG form of input and
| layout for screens. So many ways of doing screen editing and
| text entry in the real early pre PC days would of been down
| to the terminals and local cursor, send whole screen block
| mode form of editing. Unlike character mode (very early
| systems way of pooling terminals) in which it had to
| handshake each and every keystroke in effect. Though even
| some of these terminals could be configured to allow full
| screen editing mode and sent via character mode batch
| polling. Terminals were not cheap back then either and when
| the PC came out, terminal emulation software was one of the
| big sellers in some markets who would spend lots on the early
| PC's and more on this software as cheaper than the dedicated
| terminal offerings.
| kristopolous wrote:
| I asked a few friends about the New Jersey call. They (2 of them,
| both retired and over 70) claimed there's no work to be done and
| it's actually an incompetently administered administration with
| human problems who are scapegoating the technology. Also
| supposedly the New Jersey govt sacked their team and then was
| trying to contract out the work at $50/hr. Now they are offering
| $0/hr. And the solution isn't in software, or so they claimed.
|
| This assessment was after both signed up to volunteer to do the
| work and saw it was a human process failing and not a software
| issue. People tend to point to the parts most mysterious to them
| when things start to fail.
|
| Don't let this discourage you though, their problems are still
| very real.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| We should have a celebratory COBOL-thon this weekend. Everyone
| write a minimal COBOL app. Just for fun.
|
| Not sure if the COBOL bridge for Node is allowed. :-)
|
| Resources:
|
| https://opensource.com/life/15/10/open-source-cobol-developm...
|
| https://archive.org/search.php?query=COBOL%20programming
| avgDev wrote:
| I am wondering if my old professor answered the call. He used to
| work in the banking industry, is very outspoken against
| Capitalism and got fired for wearing jeans.
|
| I have been working on a project and have some experience with
| DB2/AS400, it is not as old as COBOL. It is not very fun or
| exciting and stackoverflow lacks much information, a lot of trial
| and error.
|
| I can't believe how widespread these old systems are. I am
| surprised nobody has decided to update them, I mean when these
| old developers die or retire......they will have a hard time
| migrating to a newer systems.
|
| Bonus: I HATE IBM, .Net Core provider to access database? That is
| a few $$. Crappy documentation? Check. Deleted code examples I
| had bookmarked? Check. IBM forum questions answered in private
| messages, so nobody else can use the information and the question
| needs to be asked hundreds of times? Check.
|
| IBM is so upside down.
| artificial wrote:
| I thought IBM handles this by making VMs so old things can run
| on the new(er) things? Isn't it turtles all the way down? I
| worked for a company that specialized in distribution and
| circulation software for all the big papers at one point in
| time or another and it was all COBOL with some of the code
| bases as old as I was (a handful of engineers remained which
| laid down a few of them were still on staff, pretty cool
| resources since they've solved pretty much everything). I
| bagged a bunch of AS400 operating manuals which were on their
| way to the trash. I've got one on my shelf I wish I could share
| with you. Anyway to complete the anecdote one of the younger
| engineers found their way to greener pastures by creating a
| screen scraper of sorts for the AS400 to expose it to another
| API. My mind was blown at the time but it makes sense since
| these were the webforms of their day.
| avgDev wrote:
| In our case we have an IBM iSeries box, AS400 uses DB2 as its
| database. I am writing an application that communicates with
| DB2, and I perform a lot of queries directly on the database.
| We also do have a book on AS400 but most development is done
| by our old school dev. There is plans to migrate to a newer
| system but the cost is quite expensive.
|
| I mostly work in .Net MVC/Core. However, connecting to db,
| obtaining licenses, etc have been a real pain.
| jerhewet wrote:
| I coded COBOL and RPGII programs back in the late 70's, and I'd
| flip burgers before writing another line.
| artificial wrote:
| Thanks for the laugh.
| wglb wrote:
| And I wonder how the pay compares.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Oddly enough I suspect you'd have a much harder time getting
| hired for a burger flipping gig at the moment. What a strange
| time.
| downerending wrote:
| I wouldn't want to spend more time doing it, but I do think
| today's newbies have missed something in not seeing them and
| playing with them for a bit.
| meerita wrote:
| My father programmed in COBOL, but he never talked me about this.
| Anyone mind to share his experience? What would be to do this
| today? is it hard to learn?
| artificial wrote:
| Evidently it's a faux pas to ask about :P akin to asking
| veterans about war stories. You may get a kick out of this:
| http://www.coboloncogs.org/HOME.HTM
| throaway1990 wrote:
| COBOL programmers rise!
| avgDev wrote:
| Back from the dead!
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