COBOL stays top of mind for businesses in 2020

guest · Apr 11, 2020

COBOL stays top of mind for businesses in 2020
COBOL modernization is at the center of strategic business change
February 14, 2020
https://www.techradar.com/news/cobol-remains-an-important-programming-priority

A new study has revealed that businesses are still heavily reliant on the venerable COBOL programming systems.

According to a survey by Micro Focus, which follows data gathered in previous 2017 survey, 70 percent of enterprises favor modernization as an approach for implementing strategic change.
This is opposed to replacing or retiring their key COBOL applications as they continue to provide a low-risk and effective means of transforming IT to support digital business initiatives.

“As we see the attitudes around COBOL modernization with changes to where and how it needs to be delivered and how its usage continues to grow, COBOL’s credentials as a strong digital technology appear to be set for another decade. [...]”
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COBOL: going strong after 60 years (September 10, 2019)

A look at the past and future of COBOL
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guest · Apr 11, 2020

Wanted urgently: People who know a half century-old computer language so states can process unemployment claims
April 8, 2020
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/08/business/coronavirus-cobol-programmers-new-jersey-trnd/index.html

In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy has put out a call for volunteers who know how to code the decades-old computer programming language called COBOL because many of the state's systems still run on older mainframes.

In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly said the state's Departments of Labor was in the process of modernizing from COBOL but then the virus interfered. "So they're operating on really old stuff," she said.
Connecticut has also admitted that it's struggling to process the large volume of unemployment claims with its "40-year-old system comprised of a COBOL mainframe and four other separate systems." The state is working to develop a new benefits system with Maine, Rhode Island, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

"Literally, we have systems that are 40-plus-years-old," New Jersey Gov. Murphy said over the weekend. "There'll be lots of postmortems and one of them on our list will be how did we get here where we literally needed COBOL programmers?"
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Yet, the program persists in systems
Despite a dwindling number of COBOL programmers, a 2017 report by Reuters found that there are still 220 billion lines of COBOL in use today. 43% of banking systems are built on COBOL and 95% percent of ATM swipes rely on COBOL code.

A 2018 report by the inspector general for the Social Security Administration found that the administration maintained more than "60 million lines of COBOL" with "millions more lines of other legacy programming languages." The inspector general urged the administration to modernize its systems.
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guest · Apr 11, 2020

IBM, Open Mainframe Project launch initiative to help train COBOL coders
State agencies are struggling to find actively working COBOL engineers
April 10, 2020
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-o...launch-initiative-to-help-train-cobol-coders/

Unfortunately, in many states across the US, unemployment benefit systems are crumbling under the pressure and exposing the shortcomings of legacy mainframes powered by the 60-year-old COBOL programming language.

Invented in 1959, COBOL -- short for Common Business-Oriented Language -- is considered the first truly interoperable programming language and has served as the foundation of most mission critical banking and financial services applications, including within government agencies.
The issue with COBOL now is that there are few programmers left with the skills to maintain legacy COBOL applications.

To address this skills gap, IBM and Linux Foundation's Open Mainframe Project have launched a new program to help connect states with programmers who have COBOL language skills that are proving key in the push to manage the surging number of unemployment claims nationwide.
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roger_m · Apr 12, 2020

I learnt how to code in COBOL in the nineties. It's something I've never used since.

guest · Aug 14, 2020

mood said: ↑

Wanted urgently: People who know a half century-old computer language so states can process unemployment claims April 8, 2020
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New Jersey's unemployment system might get audited
August 13, 2020
https://statescoop.com/new-jerseys-unemployment-system-might-get-audited/

New Jersey’s case gained national attention in April when Gov. Phil Murphy put out a call during a press conference for anyone with expertise with COBOL to contact the state. Those who knew the 60-year-old programming language, he said, were needed to repair an outdated mainframe that was buckling under the near-overnight 1,600% increase in claims.

After struggling with its unemployment system, California last month turned to Code for America founder Jennifer Pahlka, who now heads a “strike team” tasked with modernizing it. And many other states, like New Jersey, have yet to sift through the last few months to uncover how their legacy technology allowed such a sudden and prolonged lapse in public service.
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itman · Aug 14, 2020

New Jersey’s case gained national attention in April when Gov. Phil Murphy put out a call during a press conference for anyone with expertise with COBOL to contact the state. Those who knew the 60-year-old programming language, he said, were needed to repair an outdated mainframe that was buckling under the near-overnight 1,600% increase in claims.
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If they're paying $100/hr plus out-of-pocket expenses, might be interested. Programmed with that "bugger" language for 40 years off and on.

BTW - MicroFocus COBOL development is different than that done on the old IBM mainframes. MicroFocus was use to faciltate COBOL development on Windows PCs/servers. And that is some what of a mess since you have to use something like REX as your job control language versus native IBM mainframe JCL. Add to this is IBM mainframe online systems are developed using CICS or equilavent.

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