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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

#211

Post by tuesday20 »

_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.

So what if they don’t know how to hire programmers? All they have to do is hire someone who has had engineering leadership role/experience and let them hire programmers, isn’t it?

Isn’t it easier to verify someone’s leadership credentials than COBOL skills?

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

#212

Post by scarface74 »

LeoTinnitus wrote: post #108
dehrmann wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like government thinking around infrastructure or military hardware where you open up bids and accept the lowest offer. While there are problems with lowest-bidder-win, the real issue here is that systems like this are more living and breathing than one-off; you need a teams that tend to them, not bringing in a contractor.

This is what happens when you have typical business moron-types get elected roles that treat complicated systems as though it's construction work. It is, but you can't have any joe schmoe off the street coming in and learn how to pour concrete in a day. This is something that requires practice and problem solving skills. And years of it.

And these are the same people that people on HN think should “regulate tech”.

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

#213

Post by indymike »

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 are fulfilling Rhett requirement to post the job publications when they are rehiring a specific person quickly.

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

#214

Post by Kye »

imtringued wrote: post #182
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did software engineering exist back then.

That's an incredibly bad argument. If they wrote the programs 40 years ago and still use them they had 40 years to fix the business process. You can't argue that something is broken because it's old and then argue that you didn't have enough time to fix the process.

I wouldn't assume the fault is with the people who built the system. There is a reason they're looking desperately for people who know COBOL. Implied: they don't have any, and the systems have been ticking along for decades with the occasional call to a consultant who asked more than they would pay to modernize them.

Now management will pay even more because they're desperate and end up with a rushed solution that breaks again in the next crisis.

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

#215

Post by sgift »

scarface74 wrote: post #205
incompatible wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could help rewrite in some other language.

We still haven’t learned. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

It was a bad rule back then, it is even worse now and it didn't even stand the test of time at Fog Creek (or Glitch, looks like they have renamed themselves), where they had to do it for FogBugz to finally leave Wasabi behind. I could go on about how Firefox ended up very well and not as the complete disaster that Joel predicted back then, but that's besides the point here, namely: There can be good reasons to rewrite something and "hey, we do not find remotely enough people to work on the current code base" is pretty far up on that list.

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

#216

Post by Kye »

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.

A classic JIT sneerer.

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

#217

Post by lotsofpulp »

_v7gu wrote: post #189
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Consistently assigning work to big firms who consistently screw up... All they want to do is show that "they're trying", and the charade will continue until someone does get fired for buying IBN.

I bet NJ wouldn’t accept any excuses from a small business that tried to claim “they’re trying” if they had technical issues with payroll.

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

#218

Post by giaour »

tuesday20 wrote: post #211
_bxg1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So what if they don’t know how to hire programmers? All they have to do is hire someone who has had engineering leadership role/experience and let them hire programmers, isn’t it? Isn’t it easier to verify someone’s leadership credentials than COBOL skills?

Most government hiring does not work like that. "HR Specialists" decide if incoming applicants are qualified, and the hiring manager has little or nothing to do with it.

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

#219

Post by Kye »

Zenst wrote: post #102
Grimm1 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not ideal, but it's not like it couldn't be migrated to another language and COBOL docs are readily available to at least understand the language. We would find a way.

I've worked for a software migration company and for some languages and the bulk of code you can automate the migration. However you also need to migrate the data and then anything that touches that data, so whilst you may want to migrate one program, that program will be a suit of programs and systems making it a more complicated task than it appears on the surface. If you can data warehouse aspects off, that's grea…

One solution I saw somewhere here on HN the last time it came up was to carefully virtualize the existing systems so they have snapshots to restore from when things go wrong. That opens the possibility of moving the data to more modern systems with a translation layer between the 40 year old systems and the new systems that slowly replace them.

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

#220

Post by lotsofpulp »

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…

> If you want to be patriotic. If you want to make a difference.

And continue to incentivize politicians (and their voters) to underpay employees and delay infrastructure spending until a crisis, and then beg for more “patriotism”.

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