Hmm... thinking about the mechanisms, here, ad hoc patches are sort of is job security, and sort of aren't:
Positives are keeping the system working, negatives include making the system more difficult to keep working in the future. So... it's short term job security, while inviting your organization to bypass your part of the system completely (because of likely incoming failure modes). Or, put different, it's poor management practice advertised as good practice. Either (a) there should be periods of less time demands which should be being used to do the source updates, or (b) there's not enough staff to keep up with demands (which suggests priorities are wrong). Basically, entropy and ongoing needs are real drivers of job security, organizational dysfunction though is more an inevitable foe than a real source of security. Or, put different: choices have consequences... (That said, note that my experience has been working on repairing, maintaining and speeding up systems which then get shut down because the customers went elsewhere. So that's almost certainly influencing my perspective.) Well, it's a thought anyways, ... -- Raul On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 11:38 AM Roger Hui <[email protected]> wrote: > > Translation: job security. > > > > On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 8:33 AM Brian Schott <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I mentioned this thread to a friend who used to manage a COBOL shop where > > my spouse worked. > > He made the comment below which my spouse interpreted to me because I did > > not understand the implications. > > Those of you familiar with the (ancient or recent?) COBOL environment may > > appreciate this forwarded material. > > > > "More on the Cobol need – patching of production programs was a common > > practice and then intending to update the source, recompile it later and > > put it into the active object library and test it didn’t always get done – > > this is yet another challenge for an incoming Cobol or any other commercial > > application programmer to deal with. As one of the Beach Boys songs start > > out – Fun, fun, fun ..." > > > > > > > > -- > > (B=) > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
