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Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset
Reuters ^ | 10 April 2017 | Anna Irrera

Posted on 04/11/2017 5:59:49 AM PDT by blueplum

Bill Hinshaw is not a typical 75-year-old. He divides his time between his family – he has 32 grandchildren and great-grandchildren – and helping U.S. companies avert crippling computer meltdowns.
Hinshaw, who got into programming in the 1960s when computers took up entire rooms and programmers used punch cards, is a member of a dwindling community of IT veterans who specialize in a vintage programming language called COBOL.
[snip] Experienced COBOL programmers can earn more than $100 an hour when they get called in to patch up glitches, rewrite coding manuals or make new systems work with old.
For their customers such expenses pale in comparison with what it would cost to replace the old systems altogether, not to mention the risks involved.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: cobol; financialsystems; it
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To: Interesting Times
Why would anyone write a COBOL program?

As a computer salesman I couldn't program TV remote but I was selling COBOL systems starting in the 60s, UNIX and Fortran in the 70s/80s/90s, with networking with PCs and various OS and DB systems following, but the big banking systems still have COBOL systems running because of the expense/insecurity to convert.

I'm agnostic when it comes to OS and programing languages since I never really cared about any of them, therefore could sell for/against anything with equal vigor {much like a lawyer, except we provided a real service, unlike the blood suckers}.

21 posted on 04/11/2017 6:28:03 AM PDT by USS Alaska (Kill all mooselimb, terrorist savages, with extreme prejudice! Deus Vult!)
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To: AppyPappy

Warning: Left truncation may occur.


22 posted on 04/11/2017 6:29:52 AM PDT by john316 (JOSHUA 24:15 ...choose you this day whom ye will serve...)
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To: blueplum

Hahaha So just before I read this I tried to access my on line banking at a local branch. It seems they switched to a new version and it isn’t working.

A notice was plastered on their site saying “Some of our Customers are experiencing difficulty with our new site, we apologize for the inconvenance....”

According to the new site I don’t have an account... SAWEET!

So I call their 1-800 24 hr. support and even it is down.

Yowza.


23 posted on 04/11/2017 6:30:33 AM PDT by VRWCarea51 (The Original 1998 Version)
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To: blueplum

They haven’t all ridden their mighty steeds into the sunset! There are quite a few around who know that stuff, and unlike their indian replacements, know what the **** they are doing!

The powers that be made sure that there would be no jobs for AMERICANS any more.
One more thing: the c*cks*ckers in Washington made it very hard for those who are collecting SS to work and earn money. They tax the hell out of the SS using a complex formula that deliberately hides the fact that they are taxing the SS.
F*ck them. If I could work under the table I would. F*ck them again.


24 posted on 04/11/2017 6:34:04 AM PDT by I want the USA back (Islam mandates warfare against unbelievers and is absolutely incompatible with Western society.)
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To: blueplum

Gee, unfortunately my first and only foray into programming was on an NCR based system in the mid 60s, the 315 series, which used its own compiler.


25 posted on 04/11/2017 6:34:25 AM PDT by Mouton (There is a new sheriff in town.)
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To: AppyPappy

When I was in college, we had a great teacher in the computer science field.

He said, “With Assembler you tell the computer what to do. With Fortran you ask it to do things. With COBOL you have to get on your knees and beg.”


26 posted on 04/11/2017 6:41:37 AM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: blueplum

I don’t think there’s a shortage of people who know COBOL because every computer programming student I knew in the 80s had to take COBOL (and hated it). People just don’t want to do it.


27 posted on 04/11/2017 6:49:10 AM PDT by vladimir998 (Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
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To: AppyPappy

I would have to agree, I could revert to COBOL any time but I’m not interested in working for a company so short sighted not to have upgraded their systems before now.

Are they still EBCDIC? My Yellow card is probably brown now.


28 posted on 04/11/2017 6:54:07 AM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie
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To: Moltke

SNOBOL
APL
WatFor, WatFive
LISP
PL/1

I used ‘em all way back when there was the DP (what we used to call it back then: Data Processing) Cambrian Explosion of languages.


29 posted on 04/11/2017 6:55:37 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (Not tired of winning yet!)
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To: cyclotic

One thing for sure, there’s a bank in every town! almost anyway :) Networking is how to get in the door but you all know about that stuff already.

Seize the carp!


30 posted on 04/11/2017 6:58:20 AM PDT by blueplum ("...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017)
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To: AppyPappy

Hey, I started on COBOL 86 where you could write your own memory management by bringing parts of the program in and out of memory.

As for deep calls, try PeopleSoft COBOL. There are sometimes 5 or 6 deep nested calls with combined COPY and CALLs and Linkage Sections the size of Baltimore (also made up of sometimes dozens of copybooks).

I am one of the guys they are talking about — wrote COBOL for over 20 years.

This was very helpful for me as I am independent and did’t even think of featuring my old COBOL (and JCL, TSO, SPUFI and DB2) skills.

I am making up a CV that emphasizes those right now thanks to this article!


31 posted on 04/11/2017 7:00:04 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (Not tired of winning yet!)
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To: UCANSEE2

that is funny!!


32 posted on 04/11/2017 7:02:48 AM PDT by blueplum ("...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017)
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

>>Are they still EBCDIC? My Yellow card is probably brown now.<<

z/OS is.

Ah, Hex Dumps and BAL.

Good times, good times.


33 posted on 04/11/2017 7:02:59 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (Not tired of winning yet!)
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To: AppyPappy

>>I just moved a Linux script to Production. <<

May God have mercy on your soul.


34 posted on 04/11/2017 7:04:39 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (Not tired of winning yet!)
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To: central_va; AppyPappy

>>ALL programmers in India learn COBOL.
Riiiight....<<

They also speak “English.”


35 posted on 04/11/2017 7:05:53 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (Not tired of winning yet!)
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To: blueplum

I have converted the “green bar” paper reports to .csv files for Excel spreadsheets. I do not mind COBOL, I just dislike the reports with a header on each page. It is much easier to write the header once. Most ‘users’ are comfortable with spreadsheets.
I started on a Honeywell mainframe the got a job in an IBM shop and never looked back. Back then the IT department was call EDP for electronic data processing.


36 posted on 04/11/2017 7:08:43 AM PDT by kdr3
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To: freedumb2003

LISP - Lots of Idiotic, Silly Parentheses!


37 posted on 04/11/2017 7:13:26 AM PDT by MortMan (Attractive physicists have an exceptional incidence of thermal presence.)
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To: vladimir998

It wasn’t just programming students. Many institutions made business students take COBOL. I took Fortran and COBOL at the same time. It was a good year.


38 posted on 04/11/2017 7:16:05 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$ ("Where there is smoke, there is Susan Rice." Lee Carter, FBN, 4/6/2017)
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To: Ciaphas Cain

Make that Rear Admiral Grace Hopper. Sharp lady.


39 posted on 04/11/2017 7:22:42 AM PDT by lakecumberlandvet (APPEASEMENT NEVER WORKS.)
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To: blueplum

Back in the early 70s I had roommate from India who was a Cobol, Fortran and another computer language writer. The banks were fighting over him.

He over stayed his visa and didn’t finish his masters and went to work for some bank down in Little Rock at the beginning of the Clinton era.

Last I heard he had a huge corner office in a skyscraper.


40 posted on 04/11/2017 7:23:11 AM PDT by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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