Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

Reuters ^ | 10 April 2017 | Anna Irrera

[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.

[freedumb2003]

>>LISP - Lots of Idiotic, Silly Parentheses!<<

LOL! I remember that!

And don’t forget — in APL you can write a whole program in ONE LINE!

[Interesting Times]

Unless I misread the article, these guys are just patching, debugging, and integrating existing COBOL apps, not writing new ones.

[freedumb2003]

>>Make that Rear Admiral Grace Hopper. Sharp lady.<<

A legend.

And probably the only human to ever wrote a COBOL program from scratch.

[freedumb2003]

Ping, given your FReepname...

:)

[OldMissileer]

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.”

That there is FUNNY!!

Back in the late 70s and into the 80s I ended up learning all three languages and now that I see this quote I have to agree.

[Interesting Times]

I used to do Assembler language for some banks in Nashville back in the 70’s. That’s what the Weiland DDA checking account system was written in. I wonder if anyone does Assembler anymore? Two AM reading a hex dump, those were the days.

There is still a niche market for mainframe systems software development in assembler, writing code that integrates at a low level with IBM operating systems and subsystems. This work creates and supports products for performance management, job accounting, and so on. The end users are mainframe sysprogs.

[fatez]

Do it now, apologize later...

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Do subroutines still have to save and restore registers?

It’s been so damn long.

[RideForever]

I was on a successful project at the phone company. It was because a team leader asked me to a group to make a software switch among applications. But we had no manager to direct us. So Steve (RIP) and I butted heads together and came up with a rather elegant solution composed of mostly copied COBOL code. We had the chance to put more time into design than coding, and allow the elegance to emerge. Then the manager showed up, and asked to see our code. Our code was a collection of interchangeable routines and subroutines with a smattering of custom code, and the ‘rules’ of the interaction with the switch. So a few weeks after the new manager arrived, we reported we were done coding. A good portion of the manager’s time was then spent with helping her friend on one of the applications using the switch, who had been re-writing code for months. In the end we were writing utilities to help other applications debug their use of the ‘switch’. So, early delivery and under budget.

[kdr3]

Say 'Hello World' in 28 Different Programming Languages

[AppyPappy]

A little research shows that these jobs exist in the ether. I’m just seeing dungeon troll jobs. I want to sit up here in the hills and punch code, not rot in a cubicle in Columbia SC.
I would prefer to never see JCL again if possible. Give me COBOL running on *nix.

[AppyPappy]

Use Java to convert the csv to xls. csv’s work great until someone associates it with notepad and then it is your fault it doesn’t open in excel.

[AppyPappy]

She was the only person in history to type the words
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION

[AppyPappy]

Assembler I PUSH myself away from that code and POP another beer open.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

What you said plus main frames are better than client server systems.

[freedumb2003]

>>Do subroutines still have to save and restore registers?

It’s been so damn long.<<

I would assume in BAL.

I wrote a BAL macro language that used stacks (push, pop) which was convenient to save registers as well as pass parameters.

Back when the Earth was still cooling.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Let me know when FORTRAN makes a big comeback!

I am told that NASA is hiring FORTRAN programmers (now that Trump is giving them something to do other than Self Esteem for Muslims). A lot of the stuff they sent into space years ago runs it, and the old guys are all retiring. My aunt used to write FORTRAN for NASA.

[NewMexLurker]

RPG (Report Program Generator) is still going strong. And it was created in 1959, just like COBOL. At a lot places using the IBM iSeries, it is still used even for new development. At my business software company, we are about half and half; a couple hundred each of RPG and C++ programmers. I do admit though, that the RPG guys are typically either graybeards, or young guys willing to learn anything to get a job. The hotter new stuff for us is mostly C++ on Windows servers.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Those from India like their Jawa.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

My IT department is 95% Indian. Not one of them works with COBOL.

The irony here is they can pronounce COBOL and not Jawa.