On 15/10/2017 11:38 PM, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
Many applications systems, including ones I
worked on needed to be redesigned and replaced. It could have been
done in COBOL but getting management to buy into upgrading the way
they do things to at least the 1985 standard and its facilities let
alone anything later was too difficult.
Look at it this way though. As machines get faster and faster, there is little
need to revamp (any) code. That is one of the issue now days. management is
just to happy so they do not have to rewrite code they just get a bigger
machine. Maybe that is the undoing of Z?
I see the author's point as quite the opposite:
https://www.infoq.com/articles/retiring-mainframe-programmers
The processing power of the z is ample, as are its reliability, security, and
economy of operation. But as companies merge and move into new lines
of business and areas of operation, as there are changes in tax laws,
environmental regulations, reporting requirements, and insurance laws;
as operations move to Internet and cashless transactions, management
information systems changes are necessary.
You make a good point! I know from ex colleagues back in the UK that
demand for COBOL programmers has increased significantly in the last
couple of years due to changes in banking regulations which stipulate
that retail and investment banking systems must be separated. That means
cracking open the legacy systems for significant modifications. Good
for COBOL programmers not so good for the banks! Contract rates for
COBOL programmers haven't been so good since Y2K!
One of our customers, the only "big bank" in town, have recently
modernized their core banking CICS system to use Websphere Liberty
Profile for the new REST API. They're very happy with the results so far
but had to crack open the PL1 code to modularize it into "business
units" to simplify the API. So you're quite right. Legacy code has to be
changed quite often and that will be the case until they no longer
exist. That may be a long way away.
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