Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 361 posts

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#141

Post by chii »

WalterBright wrote: post #112
dragonwriter wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 50k LOC program serving a critical business function without a test suite or requirements documentation can be quite a chore to replace, especially if you let it go until you have neither staff experienced in the language or with experience with the background of the specific application.

I've converted such programs from one language to another. It is not necessary to understand how the program works, only how the language works. What you do is function by function, convert the language by duplicating what it does in the new language. Resist any and all urges to fix it, refactor it, improve it, etc. Just translate.

The problem is if there's some obscure language behaviour that's not documented well, and the code relied on that behaviour.

unless you're an expert and knows the language inside out, it's hard to even know such a problem occurred.

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#142

Post by throwaway7645 »

jmknoll wrote: post #125
sanguy wrote: post #52

Been working on accounting systems in RPG and COBOL since ~1992. I also know C/X86ASM/Pascal/Delphi/VB/Fortran. Never bothered with C++ that much; played with Java a bit but Oracle irritates my bowels so moved away from that. As mentioned in the article it's good work; but it is also not easy work. You tend to go through cycles of being pushed out to brought back under extreme emergency at any costs to get stuff work…

As a developer who recently turned thirty, I think about this a lot. I like working in startups, but its not going to fly forever. I'm already the old guy in the room. Would learning 'ancient' technology be a good career move? These systems aren't going anywhere, right? But the people who know how to maintain them are. Which means that maintaining these system, which already pays well, will pay even better in the fut…

You're missing the part where they're being aggressively replaced by Java at every turn and will eventually cease to exist and also these jobs are temporary consulting gigs more popular with retired experts going back to the same bank that fired them years previously.

If you want to be well employed, learn Java and move to the American south where a nice house with a 1/2 acre backyard sets you back less $130k - $200k and they can't find enough qualified IT people. No it isn't a startup or Google, but the pay compared to the average income of $30k lets you live far better than San Francisco as long as you don't mind less things to do in town.

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#143

Post by endgame »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #104
Johnny_Brahms wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not unheard of. But you must understand that these are people that have a pretty decent job security in an often huge codebase that has been aquiring cruft for 30 years in language most people don't understand. I would like to be able to claim that the code is good, but some of the people writing it in the first place were not programmers. It is not strictly bad, but some parts are just mine fields. A bit relate…

Best story I've heard is one of the old programmers commenting his COBOL code in latin . It was a different time...

Malus est?

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#144

Post by viraptor »

int_19h wrote: post #119
Johnny_Brahms wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not unheard of. But you must understand that these are people that have a pretty decent job security in an often huge codebase that has been aquiring cruft for 30 years in language most people don't understand. I would like to be able to claim that the code is good, but some of the people writing it in the first place were not programmers. It is not strictly bad, but some parts are just mine fields. A bit relate…

> COBOL programming is not very rewaeding, and at least in Sweden, most of it is slowly being moved to other languages. Which would imply that there's a demand for people who know both COBOL, and whatever's the popular migration target for such systems these days (I assume Java?).

Migration target like visual cobol (not a joke). Just look at those smiling hipsters writing cobol.net on their laptop.

https://www.microfocus.com/products/visual-cobol/visual-cobo...

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#145

Post by watwut »

StillBored wrote: post #98
polm23 wrote: post #37

I remember running into someone who worked at an insurance company in my home state and mentioned their whole system ran on COBOL. I asked her how she hired programmers and she explained they hired recent college grads with no technical background and trained them from scratch, since it was easier and cheaper than hiring experienced COBOL programmers. Looking back I'm surprised they had the institutional knowledge to…

They don't. That is why they need to call back the guys that retired. Any of the new hires with talent quickly discover they can double their salary by doing pretty much anything else in IT and move on. IBM and their customers want to turn the whole thing into a McDonalds style business, but the burgers keep burning and they keep having to call people to come in and rewire the microwave and unplug the toilet.

> Any of the new hires with talent quickly discover they can double their salary by doing pretty much anything else in IT and move on.

Not necessary. They do not know current frameworks and tools and probably don't know the knowledge is transferable.

Effectively, they need to find a company willing to train them and the one that hires by aptitude on whiteboard test only.

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#147

Post by jlebrech »

grogenaut wrote: post #106
doggydogs94 wrote: post #97

Just went into Autozone and the interface looked like a IBM CICS screen scraper. Went to my insurance agent; we looked at nice screens, but when real money became involved, we popped into this ugly legacy screen.

Or maybe it's because keyboard input is faster for a lot of heavily repeated form type things than a web interface. Web is nice when users don't know how to use it. When they do they're not really looking 1/2 the time.

terminal screens needn't be old. they can be quite fast to operate.

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#148

Post by raesene6 »

dsr_ wrote: post #10

The problem is technical debt. Banks didn't realize they were software houses, they thought that IT was a tool.

From what I've seen there are still a lot of banks who haven't yet realised that they are software houses. Anything that gets outsourced obviously isn't seen as part of the core functionality of the organisation and yet we still see things like 2000 IT staff getting sent over to IBM from Lloyds in the UK (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/13/lloyds_to_outsource...)

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#149

Post by Shivetya »

sanguy wrote: post #52

Been working on accounting systems in RPG and COBOL since ~1992. I also know C/X86ASM/Pascal/Delphi/VB/Fortran. Never bothered with C++ that much; played with Java a bit but Oracle irritates my bowels so moved away from that. As mentioned in the article it's good work; but it is also not easy work. You tend to go through cycles of being pushed out to brought back under extreme emergency at any costs to get stuff work…

We have most platforms from IBM, z (Mainframe), iSeries (AS/400), p (AIX), plus about everything windows.

Moving off core systems (z/i/p) isn't simple mostly because of the amount of data combined with all the custom applications. every attempt to move the apps off the z don't come to fruition because of scope and the fact it just works. the i is increasing its load to pick up from the z and getting a good dose of webfacing and rest services. these are dead simple to implement and many reuse all the existing code.

talent wise, it really hasn't been much of a challenge in Atlanta/Dallas to find those who can support what is needed. the language isn't the biggest road block for many mainframe systems, its the file systems that can trip people. the i is pure DB2 so anyone versed in SQL can use it and RPG looks more like Pascal these days than that three column stuff people normally associate with it.

the one thing many here don't understand is just how many companies are invested in mainframe, i, and large p series systems. don't scoff at these platforms. with modern tools they can be webfaced just fine and the advantage their default coding languages have is they are business math oriented and simple. with modern features and file systems it just comes down to, what is management comfortable with and does it serve the companies needs.

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#150

Post by H4CK3RM4N »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #104
Johnny_Brahms wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not unheard of. But you must understand that these are people that have a pretty decent job security in an often huge codebase that has been aquiring cruft for 30 years in language most people don't understand. I would like to be able to claim that the code is good, but some of the people writing it in the first place were not programmers. It is not strictly bad, but some parts are just mine fields. A bit relate…

Best story I've heard is one of the old programmers commenting his COBOL code in latin . It was a different time...

I feel like that's a play for job security more than anything else.
Post reply on HN