[Default] On 21 Apr 2020 01:45:25 -0700, in bit.listserv.ibm-main [email protected] (Seymour J Metz) wrote:
>My guess is that they needed to update the online application to support the >new legislation, that it is written in COBOL for CICS, that they negligently >failed to require, or even allow, adequate documentation and that they're too >cheap to maintain adequate staffing. There are other possibilities, but they >all boil down to poor management or inadequate funding and have nothing to do >with the choice of language. IMHO a decent programmer could quickly pick up >enough COBOL, JavaScript or whatever to do a quick fix, even if the code >wasn't as clean or efficient as he could have written with more experience. >Overcoming a lack of good documentation, however, is something else. "Remember >that after Heracles cleaned the Augean stables, he killed the man who asked >him to do it." = Robert Townsend in "Up The Organization" At this point they need to bring back people who know the system. I'm a retired DOS 360 COBOL payroll and marketing programmer, retired MVT, MVS, HASP, JES3 and JES2 systems programmer with submissions on the MICHMODS, JES3 and CBT tapes, applications technical support for LE upgrade and Y2K at an installation who developed in COBOL the date routine which I am 99% certain was faster than the COBOL functions and I still keep up with both the z systems via ibm-main and COBOL via comp.lang.cobol as well as downloading selected manuals. My specialty is debugging, modifying and improving existing code. In a crisis situation these skills would be useful only if I understood the system that was to be changed. Clark Morris > >As you noted, overloading is an unrelated issue. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
