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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

#191

Post by goto11 »

incompatible wrote: post #86
schmichael wrote: post #57

Techies: What can we do to help? 3D print ventilators? Process terabytes of data in seconds? AI?! Govt: We need COBOL programmers. Techies: I am powerless to help. But seriously some of the brightest techies I know quit their jobs to do a stint of government work which included slinging VBA and ASP Classic to remove SQL injections from VA websites and other similarly unglamorous tasks with huge impact. If you want to…

I could help rewrite in some other language.

Can you also guarantee that the rewritten code does not change any undocumented behavior? I think that is the real challenge.

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

#192

Post by imtringued »

xyst wrote: post #146
chmaynard wrote: post #104

I assume that every state unemployment compensation dept. has the same basic set of requirements as New Jersey with a slightly different set of business rules. Here's a crazy idea: all 50 states could cooperate and hire a company to develop a flexible, secure, modern system that's easier and cheaper to maintain.

The basic set of requirements are the easy part. It’s when you have to account for the differences between each state (50 factors!) is where the software becomes O(n^n) complex over the development of this product. Even the best private companies struggle to build similar systems for a single entity. I think each state should be accountable for their own programs. Avoids the “single point of failure” issue as well.

There are still benefits to choosing the same ecosystem. If everyone uses Java or Go and the same web framework then they can invest money into libraries that are useful for all 50 states. I've been at organizations that simply decided to use the same stack as another state (not USA). You end up using the same plugins and libraries. Even if you choose the wrong ecosystem because it is not mature enough you can just build it yourself and everyone benefits.

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

#193

Post by jki275 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #47
nodesocket wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I whole heartedly agree. The problem with government tech positions is they are not even competitive. Instead of hiring three mediocre or less than mediocre engineers at $60k, why not hire an amazing $150k - $180k engineer? I’m pretty sure they have ceilings on positions just so people don’t get outraged at government salaries, but incidents and times like these prove government needs to be competitive with private b…

> Instead of hiring three mediocre or less than mediocre engineers at $60k, why not hire an amazing $150k - $180k engineer? In many cases, it's literally not legal for them to do so. For example, at the Federal level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Schedule_(US_civil_ser... (These restrictions don't tend to apply to hiring one via a contractor at $250-500k/year, though. Sigh.)

Can’t hire a contractor at that rate either. DCAA controls that very closely.

If a defense contractor wants to pay someone that kind of money they generally have to pay the difference between what dcaa allows and that price out of their own overhead.

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

#194

Post by scarface74 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #45
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…

Or they, like many non-technical organizations, have no idea how to hire programmers. Could be worth a shot; even at regular companies they often over-state resume requirements.

Hell most technical organizations have no idea how to hire programmers.

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

#195

Post by robk »

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…

Surely outsourced and offshored isn't something to praise them for

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

#196

Post by Zenst »

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 was indeed, but still a very valid point and after all without Grace - there would be no COBOL.

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

#197

Post by robk »

DonHopkins wrote: post #168
Zenst wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tick the 10+ years COBOL box nicely, though that was 30+ years ago and with that, somebody with 1-3 years COBOL would be more effective than somebody as myself. Still, in an era of movie superheroes, who knew that having 10+ years upon your CV would enable you to go, step aside good citizens, for I shall save you. COBOL man to the rescue.

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

Unnecessary

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

#198

Post by Zenst »

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…

>but to point out that women can be Super Cobol Programmers too, and in fact the first Super Cobol Programmer was a woman.

Well said and an extremly valid point upon many levels, let us not forget Grace.

I perhaps should of phrased it as COBOL Human, though that may of confused others more than not, more so with the mixed superheroes conversation and that in itself had legacy baggage as do many things that are easily tripped up upon.

I'd upvote you more as detail is as always important and should never be overlooked.

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

#199

Post by microtherion »

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…

> I did a few years in the salty COBOL mines

In the mid-80s, my first year CS professor anticipated most us ending up "in the lead mines of COBOL programming" — it was commonly assumed that we'd never manage to get rid of the dominance of COBOL.

Are references to mining common in the COBOL scene?

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

#200

Post by Zenst »

asdkjh345fd wrote: post #180
DonHopkins wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are correct but the poster does raise fair and yes, nothing intended directly nor indirectly - however it would be possible to read that into it and the reply initially was fair and did restore balance for those that may mis-read and all done in the best possible taste - they used a geek-wink ";)".

However, it is easy to view such balance as over-balance and it can then snowball into something of which it was not, and words, like code - heck nobody writes perfect code first time, let alone wording. So you can easily get bugs, be that in the code or in how things are worded that open those words up to tangents or ambiguity that was never the intention.

Anyhow - we are all on the same page of that issue I do feel and with that, let's poor one out for Grace, who without her we would not even be having this conversation that COBOL has given us today.

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