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That's not an issue with "style of programming", it's just complete disregard of software engineering basics.
Did software engineering exist back then.
Yet I’m sure they’re offering $60K/year.
[1] https://info.csc.state.nj.us/Vats/WebAnno.aspx?FileNumber=30...
[2] https://info.csc.state.nj.us/Vats/WebAnno.aspx?FileNumber=30...
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Easy there. We're standing on the shoulders of those COBOL giants. What's obvious in 2020 was cutting-edge and forward-thinking in 1960. The rude kids of 2080 may sneer at your best code circa 2020.
Don't mean to brag, but I already sneer at 2020 code!
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…
Yet I’m sure they’re offering $60K/year.
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…
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 be patriotic. If you want to make a difference. Government work can do that. You're probably not going to train a neural net to solve coronavirus, but you'll probably be able to stop 1000 hacks from ever happening or get help to someone who really truly needs it.
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There's a claim in one of the reply threads that they contracted HP to build a replacement years ago, but the project didn't succeed: https://twitter.com/tradel/status/1246526465207869440
Needs a design-build contract, like the Highway 99 tunnel in Seattle. You get one set of money and only if it works in the end. No change orders or cost plus.
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…
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.
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.
The CASE tool would do code generation for screens and forms and whatnot. And.... that's about as much as I remember at the moment.