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New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

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Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

#171

Post by DonHopkins »

DrScump wrote: post #132
dbcurtis wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> JCL ERROR IN OR NEAR CARD 1 COLUMN 1 0C7 ABEND ABORT CORE DUMP FOLLOWS: .... About the only other thing I remember is: //SYSIN DD * No. Thank. You.

If you get an S0C7, your JCL is probably fine (else you wouldn't get far enough to get a data exception). JCL is just another scripting language. I found it fun. I did all the JCL for my group's production jobs and commented the hell out of the esoteric issues to help Operations triage things. A small, well-planned effort prevented a crapload of, well, crap.

JCL is certainly not any worse than bash.

Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

#172

Post by varjag »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #41
tantalor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an issue with "style of programming", it's just complete disregard of software engineering basics.

Did software engineering exist back then.

Did you ever wonder how Internet was created before the Internet

Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

#173

Post by DonHopkins »

Falkon1313 wrote: post #75
Twirrim wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've certainly found myself sneering at code I wrote just last week.

In an effort to be more efficient, I've begun sneering at it as I write it.

I just go m-x auto-sneer-mode and Emacs automatically sneers at my code as I write it!

I like to edit the source code to auto-sneer-mode.el in sneer mode, so it sneers at itself! Nothing more snarky than self-sneering code. I had to manually sneer by myself while writing it, to get it bootstrapped.

Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

#174

Post by ztjio »

PunksATawnyFill wrote: post #60
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did software engineering exist back then.

Yes, it did. In fact, CASE tools were going to be all the rage: computer-aided software engineering. One of them was METHOD/1 from Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). If you wanted to create a variable to hold, for example, a part number... you'd create an entry in the CASE tool for it and from then on, everyone was supposed to use that one. It would have validation rules, like 30 characters, alphanumeric, whatever.…

CASE tools are widely used today, but, you will see them scoped very specifically the databases in systems where everything is built around the massive pillar of a major db implementation.

I worked for a company for little while that made extremely effective use of this approach allowing hundreds of devs to effectively work simultaneously on a single monolithic system. It was shocking. I was so impressed. I've still never seen any software organization so... organized. And they owed it largely to the protocols revolving around their use of a CASE tool.

Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

#175

Post by DonHopkins »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #170
DonHopkins wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Cobol Woman! ;) Cobol was created by Admiral Grace Hopper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper https://medium.com/@donhopkins/cobol-forever-1a49f7d28a39

I am pretty sure that individual was referring to themselves with that term.

I am pretty sure my intent was not to misgender him (else I wouldn't have said "Or"), but to point out that women can be Super Cobol Programmers too, and in fact the first Super Cobol Programmer was a woman.

If you're touchy about people gently correcting accidental unintended sexism, take a moment to think about how women like Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace have felt about being on the receiving end of systematic intentional sexism all their lives.

https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace

Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

#177

Post by godzillabrennus »

burfog wrote: post #151
thaumaturgy wrote: post #32

I was sort of tempted to pursue this. I did a few years in the salty COBOL mines back when I was a PFY about 20...plus years ago. This niche probably hasn't moved very much since then and I could probably recall most of it after a few hours. I'm freelancing right now anyway and some other projects just vaporized. But. A quick skim of the postings is finding that what they're really screaming for is somebody who's bee…

They aren't asking for so much. They want: 1. understanding the language (COBOL) 2. IBM mainframe experience (JCL, DB2, VSAM, SDLC) 3. credentialed (4-year degree) Note that SDLC is a layer 2 network protocol in the SNA stack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_Data_Link_Control

3.) is what gets me...

Why do you need to pay a college to get a piece of paper to enable someone to pay you for skills you otherwise posses?

Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

#178

Post by tragomaskhalos »

DrScump wrote: post #140
LeoTinnitus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everytime I see COBOL, I always think of Newman from Jurassic Park and imagine that is a stereotypical COBOL programmer haha! If you see any bosses with a weird scarf, back away cause they may spit corona-acid in your face!

That film's horrible misrepresentation of UNIX almost ruined it for me.

You have to go to the original Crichton novel for the real cringeworthy misrepresentation of tech: the "code" listings will make you weep. He's a great writer, don't get me wrong, but would a little bit of research and/or editorial assistance have hurt ?!

Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

#179

Post by v8engine »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #163
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is, that's how they get away with everything. They fix nothing, then wait for somebody to need them enough, or have compassion enough to handle their mess. Basically here, they are saying: we didn't listen to all those competent people that told us we should have cleaned this system a long time ago because one day it will bite us back. We didn't think technical debt was a thing. It has always worked. And it's…

This is honestly a terrible take. NJ did try to modernize the benefits system in 2007, awarding the contract to a company that is now owned by HP. News article: https://www.nj.com/politics/2014/11/nj_ends_118_million_cont... EDIT: surprised at the downvotes. Parent asserted: > we didn't listen to all those competent people that told us we should have cleaned this system a long time ago because one day it will bite us…

https://twitter.com/tradel/status/1246526465207869440

Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system

#180

Post by asdkjh345fd »

DonHopkins wrote: post #175
Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure that individual was referring to themselves with that term.

I am pretty sure my intent was not to misgender him (else I wouldn't have said "Or"), but to point out that women can be Super Cobol Programmers too, and in fact the first Super Cobol Programmer was a woman. If you're touchy about people gently correcting accidental unintended sexism, take a moment to think about how women like Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace have felt about being on the receiving end of systematic int…

>If you're touchy about people gently correcting accidental unintended sexism

The point was that there is no sexism, unintended or otherwise, in the post you are "correcting". Projecting your touchiness onto others isn't very polite or constructive.

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