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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

#291

Post by prirun »

smabie wrote: post #141
xienze wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why not hire an amazing $150k - $180k engineer? If you're making that kind of money, you have a lot better options than working on some ancient COBOL system that processes unemployment claims.

150-180k total comp isn't that high of a salary for an engineer. It's above average I'd imagine, but probably not even in the top 20th percentile. As such, for 150-180k you should be able get a pretty decent (yet unexceptional) coder.

Especially since NJ has the highest property taxes of any state in the US. $150-180K is a very good salary for where I live (Indiana), but not IMO for NJ:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/property-tax-which-homeowners-a...

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

#292

Post by prirun »

imtringued wrote: post #192
xyst wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

The problem is, you have to get the politicians to agree to the same policies so that the code works for both states. Politicians don't like to be told "You have to do it this way because of the computer system". Politicians want to decide the rules, then make everyone follow them. They don't follow rules themselves.

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

#293

Post by celicaraptor »

boneitis wrote: post #263
schmichael wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday there was an exciting post about printing off pages of assembly and reverse engineering archaic encryption using a crayon. If you thought that was exciting I can't imagine hacking on archaic COBOL codebase could be much worse in terms of quality of tooling! There's also a much better chance you'll have a say in the replacement if you work on and understand the original.

I couldn't track it down. Would you be able to relocate and link it? I'd love to see it, as someone who draws and colors all over printouts for reverse engineering challenges.

Probably this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22774057

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

#294

Post by krageon »

neaanopri wrote: post #103
meow1032 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works with a lot of state IT people, if they don't know how to hire programmers, they probably don't know how to manage programmers. In a bureaucracy, if the administrators are making these kinds of unrealistic hiring demands in a crisis, it probably means that the administrators outrank all programmers and don't trust them to make their own decisions. This is not an environment to work in.

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.

> That's worth enduring a bad boss for.

A bad boss will absolutely give you burnout, and that lasts for years. You are of course correct, but at the same time I would never ask this of someone and I wouldn't subject myself to it either. Bad bosses will destroy your quality of life in the medium-long term.

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

#296

Post by scarface74 »

coribuci wrote: post #288
scarface74 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% of my salary wouldn’t be nearly as impactful as helping millions of people get unemployment checks quickly.

Then why don't _you_ do it ?

I didn’t say I would do either. It is a generic discussion about tradeoffs.

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

#297

Post by boneitis »

celicaraptor wrote: post #293
boneitis wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't track it down. Would you be able to relocate and link it? I'd love to see it, as someone who draws and colors all over printouts for reverse engineering challenges.

Probably this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22774057

Oh! I should have known :)

Thanks!

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

#298

Post by JoshuaDavid »

goto11 wrote: post #284
sgift wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rewrit…

Netscape went from the dominant browser to a negligible browser share. They basically handed the browser market to IE on a platter. They only rebounded somewhat because MS abandoned IE development altogether. And the result of the rewrite was not even that good, which can be seen from everybody else building on webkit rather than Mozilla.

I think the unspoken and (imo) wrong assumption here is that if you have a codebase which nobody understands, and the success of your organization relies on iterating rapidly and correctly on that codebase for its continued survival, there is anything you can do that has a high probability of success.

If you are in that situation, and you do not do a rewrite, you are likely to fail.

If you are in that situation, and you do a rewrite, you are likely to fail.

Sometimes there is no winning move.

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

#299

Post by goto11 »

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #298
goto11 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netscape went from the dominant browser to a negligible browser share. They basically handed the browser market to IE on a platter. They only rebounded somewhat because MS abandoned IE development altogether. And the result of the rewrite was not even that good, which can be seen from everybody else building on webkit rather than Mozilla.

I think the unspoken and (imo) wrong assumption here is that if you have a codebase which nobody understands, and the success of your organization relies on iterating rapidly and correctly on that codebase for its continued survival, there is anything you can do that has a high probability of success. If you are in that situation, and you do not do a rewrite, you are likely to fail. If you are in that situation, and…

I don't doubt the existing code was a mess, but I'm pretty sure their time would have been better spent refactoring it into a more modular structure. For example, what actually made people switch to Firefox eventually was tabs and a popup-blocker. There was no need to rewrite the entire network stack from scratch to support this.

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

#300

Post by cultus »

abeyer wrote: post #251
lotsofpulp wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the strategy of undervaluing the work of creating and maintaining robust systems will be validated. Why spend the money and invest now for the future, when you can lean on people to donate their efforts in times of crisis?

> Why spend the money and invest now for the future, when you can lean on people to donate their efforts in times of crisis? First, no one said anything about donating effort...the scenario was getting paid a decent, if not quite FAANG, salary to work on an older tech stack. And sure, you _could_ take that approach. We tried it with pandemic preparation, let's see how that works out.

It's really not sustainable or realistic to rely on altruism. Taking a huge pay cut to work on awful systems nobody wants to deal with exceeds how much nearly anyone is willing to help.

Just giving a frigging UBI for at least the duration of this crisis would solve all of these problems and work much better.

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