It’s a trap!
New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
241–250 of 309 posts
Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
#242Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a crisis, not a normal time. Fixing this system will make the difference between real people getting unemployment checks or nothing. That's worth enduring a bad boss for.
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…
> So you have the choice between saving the money of poor people now and reinforcing the suck of the whole system, of letting people suffer for a chance of a redo and purging the ones that lead to this.
What a terribly wrong take. If you really believe the system is that corrupted, and that horrible then you know darn well that the count of people who suffered during this emergency won't make a difference. There will be "accountability" in some form, but it won't be driven by how many people did or didn't get money for food at all.
Whether you help them or not won't change the system. So instead you're saying scores of families should go hungry so you can stay on your high horse and lecture.
Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
#244Earlier 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-...
Nobody's going to eat the government's lunch.
There are still people around today who know COBOL, but how many years will that last?
Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not too hard but a little unforgiving. JCL was harder to deal with.
This is the only book you need for JCL. Called, either the Brown-Blue book or Blue-Brown book. https://www.amazon.com/System-370-Job-Control-Language/dp/04...
When I had to learn it it was on a s/390. Would the 370 translate well?
Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Getting Atlas Shrugged vibes. Lots of parallels with this situation actually.
Seems like OP is describing the plight of the average worker who gets left to clean up the mess with no credit at the end of it all and less of the business leaders or executives.
IIRC, the capable workers were the first gone to Galt's Gulch. The story dwells on slightly-less-bad business people running around like decapitated chickens trying to keep things working, but the real heroes just quietly noped out.
Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
#247Has anyone ever built an interface ( software and / or custom keyboard ) specifically for interfacing with the terrible UI / ergonomics of COBOL / mainframe systems like this? Basically, has anyone ever built modern dev tooling or custom hardware to reduce the pain?
Depends on what you mean.
For example, my editor (which I use for work like this)
MODE-'COBOL'
72.b -.a -.t -.h 8.h 12.h
.r
But that is just me. You should look into THE: The Hessling Editor on linux, etc. Look into Regina Rexx.
which would be all the "tooling" needed. You could run a mainframe emulator (look into Hercules)
How is 80 column "punch card" style editing and printer output terrible?
Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
#248This issue highlights one of my main fears about a pandemic such as COVID-19: if enough people with the necessary amount of knowledge to maintain necessary infrastructure die without sufficiently and timely trained replacements, then civilization as we know it becomes one more step closer towards total irrecoverable collapse. The prevalence of COBOL and other older programming languages in many parts of the world's c…
> then civilization as we know it becomes one more step closer towards total irrecoverable collapse.
I love how pop culture always portrays the collapse as coming from our inability to maintain or repair some mythical machine or technology. Never once did I imagine that it was the state welfare software.
Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
#249I've got COBOL experience, but Everytime I check into these positions they aren't paying very well. I don't know about this particular case, but in general COBOL programmers aren't valued very much, despite the high demand within the narrow niches that still use COBOL.
Re: New Jersey needs COBOL programmers for their unemployment claims system
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
What's the difference between "overhead" and "salary" for the contractor? If they charge 500k for the job and give 250k to their employee, it doesn't really matter whether they billed him at an hourly rate of $30 or $300.