I never did much programming in COBOL, but I looked over a good bit of it back in college. 

I remember reading lines upon lines of code; thinking I could do this in one or two lines in BASIC or FORTRAN.

 

The new director of the NJ Department of Labor.

3 minutes ago, 45Doll said:

The new director of the NJ Department of Labor.

wonder how many even know who she is.......

 

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50 minutes ago, W2MC said:

wonder how many even know who she is.......

 

Admiral Grace Hopper

9 minutes ago, Displaced Texan said:

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morse is so hard looking at it - you gotta hear it feel it !

 

8 minutes ago, Displaced Texan said:

Admiral Grace Hopper

If anyone can find a bug in a system, it's Admiral Grace.

The problem in this case is not the bugs, it's the gopher.

2 minutes ago, MartyZ said:

The problem in this case is not the bugs, it's the gopher.

 

1 minute ago, MartyZ said:

The resemblance is uncanny. 

48 minutes ago, Displaced Texan said:

The resemblance is uncanny. 

I think the gopher from Caddyshack looks better

Volunteers?  Lol!

No wonder they can't develop a replacement.  When you offer the money they want to pay, you get what you get.

Reminds me of when another Apu called me a few weeks ago with a fantastic IT PM gig in Los Angeles on a W2 contract, onsite fulltime...for the royal sum of $25 per hour, no benefits, no covered expenses.  I asked him for suggestions on which overpass would be best to sleep under.

 

Anyway, this explains the current UI processing.  First it was certify every Sunday between 8am and 6pm.  I assumed they needed someone to show up and turn on the server.

Then it was a range of SS# each hour of the Sunday.  Now it is a range each hour spanning Sunday and Monday, due to volume.  I just assumed they had some old IBM 486 pc acting as the server, and some state worker showed up each day to plug in the LAN cable.

On April 6, 2020 at 12:14 PM, MartyZ said:

F-Murphy, I want $300 an hour, I aint volunteering. And yes I am/was a cobol programmer,  but I am managing now. But I can still code with the best of them.

Oh, and for those who think cobol is dead, it's more persistent then RBG.

Who's going to go first cobol or RBG?

4 minutes ago, WP22 said:

Who's going to go first cobol or RBG?

lol. Probably COBOL!! 

Looks like the unemployment is running on the same system as these do....

11 minutes ago, FishNHard said:

Looks like the unemployment is running on the same system as these do....

I had that! Frogger was awesome 

frogger kicked ass 

 

Just now, FishNHard said:

frogger kicked ass 

 

So did tennis 

3 hours ago, WP22 said:

Who's going to go first cobol or RBG?

Is cobol also backed by Satan?

2 hours ago, FishNHard said:

Looks like the unemployment is running on the same system as these do....

I had to go look up the specs. Its been a while since I’ve seen one of these.

8 bit 6507 CPU running at 1.19 MHz and 128 bytes..... yes.....bytes ....of RAM.

So perfect for the State of NJ.

Only volunteering I'd do for that rat faced ****bag is a MY PILLOW application to his face.   

Actually I'd pay for the pleasure   LOL

 

 

Interesting.

NJ probably got a scare about 20 years ago (the 2000 "crisis") and has had 20+ years to consider updating this computer program. 

NOW they need 'volunteers' to go in and fix it?

14 hours ago, FishNHard said:

Looks like the unemployment is running on the same system as these do....

Space Invaders!

33 minutes ago, 45Doll said:

Space Invaders!

Phil Murphy is definitely a space invader....

The funny thing is that corporations and governments have been trying to get rid of cobol for over 40 years now, and guess what, it ain't going nowhere. Mainframes can handle more stress, and they can do it faster then any server farm out there. Look at google, they have over 500k servers worldwide to be able to handle their volume, while the largest corporations, that handle 100s of millions of transaction daily, only need about 10 mainframes. Contrary to popular belief, mainframes are still more powerful then most servers out there.

Now consider the programming language, how many mainstream mainframe languages are there, maybe 3 or 4. Now how many distributed languages are there, 100s? with new ones popping up every day. What's going to happen in another 40 years when we have a shortage of Java, C#, C++, Angular, JS, etc... programmers? 

If I get cobols, I put on warmer pants, just sayin'

The biggest challenge in getting COBOL programmers is the lack of available training.  There used to be several excellent technical training programs available commercially, plus colleges.  Now?  Nothing.  When I was last in corporate we developed a "farm team" program to bring in entry-level programmers and taught them COBOL.  It was a great way into a corporate career path.  It died out from lack of interest since internal turnover among COBOL programmers was nil - right up until they started to retire.  The company now struggles to maintain legacy COBOL code as the staff ages out.  It forced some significant expense to rewrite systems in a newer language but left much of the back-end in place.

Like it or not, mainframe COBOL still processes a significant amount of data behind that web front-end.

There is really large payroll processing company based in the US - the one that likely pays half the folks on this board - that still processes it using a COBOL mainframe system.

Somewhat late, but still relevant.

And he is still asking for volunteers. Unbelievable. With the current state of unemployment he should be offering top dollar.

$500/hr is my going rate. If he pays me I will be happy to assist.