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

reuters.com

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

#151

Post by throwaway_374 »

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…

I think the question everyone is failing to ask is: what's the interview process like? Do they put you through 4 rounds of whiteboard coding bullshit followed by a coding assessment followed by a pair programming session? If anything, I'd argue the interview process for such a nice role should be the most rigorous because you can't rely on auto-complete-by-stackoverflow.

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

#152

Post by douche »

Businesses in general seem to have a really hard time dealing with training and institutional knowledge transfer these days.

As an example from another industry, my father was working as a mechanic/greaser in a power plant for the past 17 years, alongside a millwright who had been there for 30, since they opened the doors. In the last six months, they both retired - after telling management what their timetables were about five years ago. The company never brought in anyone to train under them and learn all the minutia of how the plant works that is locked away in their heads. They haven't even hired anyone full-time to replace them. Needless to say, equipment all over the plant is starting to break down, because simple things like greasing bearings regularly isn't being done properly, and when things break down, they aren't being put back together properly, because no one knows the idiosyncrasies of the equipment. Every hour this plant is down costs tens of thousands of dollars.

The millwright is starting to get called in as a consultant for three times his previous hourly wage.

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

#153

Post by tzs »

acchow wrote: post #111
ternaryoperator wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect he meant the high range of 100K-200K. It's a colloquialism I hear periodically. I took it to mean $180K-$200K.

How can "high 6 figures" mean high 100-200k? Ugh, I hate english.

I wouldn't call it that, but if I had to for some reason I'd go with percentiles. Within the group of people who make 100-999k, 200k puts you at about the 80th percentile. I think 80th percentile is good enough to call "high".

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

#154

Post by djaychela »

acchow wrote: post #123
djaychela wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree, I heard a similar thing on the weather (here in the UK, in degrees Celcius), when the weather woman said we would be in "mid double figures" tomorrow, clearly meaning around 15 degrees, not 50!

They don't use "mid-teens" in the UK?

Yes they do, but I guess she just mis-spoke (for those in the UK, this is Carol Kirkwood on the BBC)...

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

#155

Post by svckr »

z3t4 wrote: post #128
Joeri wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies never think of the old guys as the ones to implement the new system - that's a job for the "enterprise experts" Exactly this is why rewrites fail. The challenge of a rewrite is not in mapping the core architecture and core use case, it's mapping all the edge cases and covering all the end user needs. You need people intimately familiar with the old system to make sure the new system does all the weird stu…

all features and edge cases should have a test. if possible also have tests for all the bugs ever found in the old system. it helps if the tests are not too coupled with the code and are well documented. a test could be making an entry where deb and cred dont match. or trying to enter an extra decimal. and if the system adds two decimals corectly.

Maybe I don't give the rewriters enough credit, but in all honesty, I'd be surprised if they bothered to look that deep into the code and tests before it's already too late. Too often, there's just some handwaving and proclaiming you "don't to it like that in today's software".

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

#156

Post by caseymarquis »

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…

Sounds like you should start an "enterprise expert" consultancy that knows what it's doing. Seems like a good opportunity.

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

#157

Post by bernardlunn »

caseymarquis wrote: post #156
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…

Sounds like you should start an "enterprise expert" consultancy that knows what it's doing. Seems like a good opportunity.

great idea. Or an expert network as many are self employed.

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

#158

Post by alkonaut »

rimliu wrote: post #91
kingnothing wrote: post #8

"Experienced COBOL programmers can earn more than $100 an hour when they get called in to patch up glitches, rewrite coding manuals or make new systems work with old." Any contract-based engineer would charge that, or more, regardless of the language. Fortune 500 companies are happy to pay $300 / hour to a consulting company for engineering time.

Maybe that was supposed to be $1000 but writer thought "no way"?

It must have been $1000 and somehow a zero was lost.

Financial insustry? Short term work? Specialist competence systems? There is no way it's $100.

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

#159

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

Shivetya wrote: post #149
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 we…

> Moving off core systems (z/i/p) isn't simple mostly because of the amount of data combined with all the custom applications.

I wonder if someone could get away with selling a z/i/p emulator, akin to Wine. (Or perhaps more appropos, Mame, since the machine architecture would differ as well.)

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

#160

Post by eru »

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…

I guess software is so ingrained into companies these days---and banks were particularly early adopters, that the best chance of a rewrite of a company's software is to start a new company.

A new company whose processes for example don't have all these interdependent edge cases (yet). The domain will start pushing edge cases on the new company too sooner or later, but that knowledge still has a chance to diffuse---and lots of newer companies these days are probably better at avoiding small bus factors.

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