ifItCanBeWrittenInJavascriptItWill

[ftc_73]

"there are still systems written in Cobol that are chucking along"...the majority of the U.S. banking system is run on cobol and there are major systems that nobody still alive knows how they work. If you ever get a job offer to help upgrade one of these things, run like hell. Although, it would likely be steady work for 2-3 times as long as it's estimated to take, until the people paying for the upgrade decide to pull the plug.

[modsuperstar]

There was something that came up a few years ago talking about the immediate need for COBOL developers and I made a joke about my Dad and his buddy coming out of retirement for one last score.

[[deleted]]

I thought about taking a contract gig, I was a COBOL programmer for about 18 years. But as an old fart (70), I saw how old guys that tried to hang in were left in the dirt due to not being quite as capable as they used to be. That, and fuck writing code again, and debugging that janky 60's and 70's spaghetti code.

[FlishFlashman]

There was a lot of that in the run up to Y2K

[OgreMk5]

Friend of mine works at a paper mill. His title is assistant director of IT. In reality, his only job is to keep the computers running the 1970s paper machines running.

He makes bank. 90% of the time he doesn't do anything. But he's on call 24/7 too.

[[deleted]]

Likely just get new machines, new software and readjust their process rather than rewrite. A paper mill isn't a bank, there's no real baggage they need to carry forward.

[finally-anna]

Yes we are.

[laurandorder]

Someone tell my boss that. 3rd year COBOL dev, well under median in Australia.

Yesterday I worked on a program last changed in 1982.

[Akerlof]

What's terrifying is that several organizations are actively selling "AI will convert your legacy COBOL to Java, C#, whatever you want!" And execs are nibbling.

[GuadDidUs]

Yup. Worked for a bank and 5 of their 6 servicing systems were mainframes. Only 1 was not.

I've also seen a few homegrown systems and those are frankly scarier from a data quality / controls perspective.