Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, Apr 05, 2020 at 01:20:09PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: [...] > well, close. > His BASIC quote is: > "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students > that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers > they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." > > Here is one copy of his 1975 paper, "How Do We Tell Truths That > Might Hurt": > https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html > > I don't know what language(s), if any, that he liked. Perhaps this quote will help: (...) The Burroughs ALGOL compiler was very fast — this impressed the Dutch scientist Edsger Dijkstra when he submitted a program to be compiled at the B5000 Pasadena plant. His deck of cards was compiled almost immediately and he immediately wanted several machines for his university, Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. The compiler was fast for several reasons, but the primary reason was that it was a one-pass compiler. Early computers did not have enough memory to store the source code, so compilers (and even assemblers) usually needed to read the source code more than once. The Burroughs ALGOL syntax, unlike the official language, requires that each variable (or other object) be declared before it is used, so it is feasible to write an ALGOL compiler that reads the data only once. This concept has profound theoretical implications, but it also permits very fast compiling. Burroughs large systems could compile as fast as they could read the source code from the punched cards, and they had the fastest card readers in the industry. (from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_large_systems ) Whatever he liked, it looks that he optimised for speed of execution. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/7/2020 12:31 PM, John Ames via cctech wrote: *That said,* there are definitely some languages that are more conducive to building these habits than others (and, within each group, many that emphasize different aspects more or less strongly.) I can't speak to COBOL as I've never had cause to get any experience with it, but I would say that BASIC (as in, the old-school, unstructured BASICs of the Bad Old Days) really does teach you a bunch of habits that you end up needing to un-learn as soon as you start working with better languages (not even *newer* languages - ALGOL and Lisp both predate it.) Where does a TINY PASCAL compiler written in BASIC fit? Then you have Some posible better languges that never seem to make it out of a LAB or UNIVERSITY. Like CLEOPATRA-comprehensive language for elegant operating systems and translator design. 1974 (From the "Internet archive") The Internet Archive has a lot of good books, that somebody distroyed by convering to PDF's the wrong way.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
> From: Neil Thompson > > I'm convinced that Dijksta (and anyone else who came out with similar > comments were full of horseshit. In my opinion, it's the ability to > translate a real world "thing" into an algorithm that is the essense of > programming, and anyone who has managed to learn (particularly on their > own, as many of us did) that ability has learned something that transcends > the language (or tool) you use to implement the algorithm. There's definitely truth to this. The main thing that makes a good programmer isn't memorization of language features or syntax, it's good mental organization and thinking habits; the ability and practice of really *thinking through* the steps involved in solving a problem, building a solid mental model of the relevant data structures and algorithms, and then breaking those down into component steps until one arrives at a suitable representation in native-language operations. If someone has a good understanding of that, they can apply it (with varying amounts of blood, sweat, and tears) in any language; if they don't, there's no language in the world that can impart it to them (no matter *what* the flavor-of-the-decade Savior Of All Programming Forever is - "Try Swift! It's the new Pascal!") *That said,* there are definitely some languages that are more conducive to building these habits than others (and, within each group, many that emphasize different aspects more or less strongly.) I can't speak to COBOL as I've never had cause to get any experience with it, but I would say that BASIC (as in, the old-school, unstructured BASICs of the Bad Old Days) really does teach you a bunch of habits that you end up needing to un-learn as soon as you start working with better languages (not even *newer* languages - ALGOL and Lisp both predate it.) Line-#-and-GOTO programming imposes the same burden of bookkeeping and space-management on the programmer as direct machine-code monitor hacking and the most primitive assemblers, but without any rational explanation as to why, so that any novice attempting to create a program of any real complexity ends up being instilled with a superstitious dread over the ludicrous non-question of where to put things - do I space statements N numbers apart? What if I need to add more than N-1 intervening statements later!? Should I place my subroutines on even 1000s for easy reference? Will the line numbers even go high enough!? - the lack of scoped/local variables or any parameter-passing mechanism for GOSUB makes any non-trivial modularization nearly impossible, and the READ/DATA structure is just flat-out demented. And all that mental exhaustion *before* the newbie even gets to the *real* challenges of learning to program! Now, Dijkstra was a self-important ponce given to wild all-or-nothing proclamations and manifestos (manifestes? Manifesti?) and even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his statements quoted here were meant tongue-in-cheek they're still pretty ridiculous. And God knows the Appointed Language Messiah in that great holy war, Pascal, was its own special breed of Hell for novices and experts alike (array size as type qualifier? Just kill me now...) And it's definitely true that plenty of people can and did learn to program in BASIC and still went on to learn better and do Good Things down the line. But there absolutely are such things as bad programming languages.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
At 18:25 05-04-20, you wrote: It was thus said that the Great Fred Cisin via cctalk once stated: > >>Edsger Dijksta said, "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching > >>should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." > > On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, geneb wrote: > >I'm pretty sure he said that about BASIC, and I'm totally bummed he died > >before I could bitch slap him over it. ;) > > well, close. > His BASIC quote is: > "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that > have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are > mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." > > Here is one copy of his 1975 paper, "How Do We Tell Truths That Might > Hurt": > https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html > > I don't know what language(s), if any, that he liked. Math. -spc (Had some comp-sci profs who didn't like programming or computers) Thanks for that link. Didn't run into Dijkstra's work until I'd been programming for years but can't say he had much impact on me. Tried to find out tonight whether I had been "mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration". Found first computer book I bought on 21/1/1968 which was Digital Computer Principle by Burrough's Corporation when I would have been 14. In bad shape now as I'd lug it with me to reread sections wherever I went. Remembered entering a science fair that year with a full-adder circuit composed of DTL logic using discrete diodes and transistors. One of the people I met at that science fair and I got to play with a Nova computer shortly afterwards. It ran BASIC and we wondered why they let 2 14 year olds spend so much time writing little programs on it, but maybe they were using us an example of how easy it was for even kids to use. It was at some oil company related equipment exhibition in Calgary. After deciding it would be a lot faster to actually figure out how to get access to a computer than build my own, teamed up with a few nerds in Calgary. One of them had somehow pursuaded the Calgary school board to buy $20,000 worth of computer time on the UofC mainframe (200 CPU hours on a 360) and most of this CPU time was used by about 5 of us. I was thinking of mathematics at that point in my life, but was told that I would never be a mathematician when I talked to one of the UofC mathematicians about my program to numerically simulate the gravitational 3 body problem by solving the system of differential equations in FORTRAN. He was very dismissive saying that I was doing applied mathematics and my interests would be better suited to engineering. The guy I met at the science fair did go into engineering and did a lot of work on remote sensing and satellite imagery analysis. Program was easy, plotting results on graph paper wasn't. While hanging out at the UofC data center was told to read Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming which had just come out. Had no access to a MIX interpreter then and had to translate his algorithms into FORTRAN. Don't feel like going into my freezing shop attic now to find out whether I started with BASIC or FORTRAN, but it was probably Knuth that made me always like to code in assembly language. For the type of research I ended up doing, FORTRAN was far too slow and most of my PDP-11 programs were FORTRAN calls to assembly routines that were optimized for speed and bits of FORTRAN code I needed to display results or change experimental parameters. Got to work with a great mathematician during this research who was the black sheep in the UBC math faculty because his interest was applied mathematics. So if BASIC was first language I ever programmed in, didn't seem to affect my ability to create massive PDP-11 projects running on multiple processors simultaneously.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
Here in Canada, ongoing for several years now, we've had the major fiasco of the Phoenix payroll system. I've never heard an accounting of where the fault lies, or why IBM isn't being held more accountable. A brief summary from Wikipedia: The Phoenix pay system is a payroll processing system for Canadian federal government employees, provided by IBM in June 2011 using PeopleSoft software, and run by Public Services and Procurement Canada. ... first introduced in 2009 .. intended to replace Canada's 40-year old system with a new, cost-saving "automated, off-the-shelf commercial system." By July 2018, Phoenix has caused pay problems to close to 80 percent of the federal government's 290,000 public servants through underpayments, over-payments, and non-payments. The Standing Senate Committee .. investigated .. and submitted their report, "The Phoenix Pay Problem: Working Towards a Solution" on July 31, 2018, in which they called Phoenix a failure and an "international embarrassment" Instead of saving $70 million a year as planned, the report said that the cost to taxpayers to fix Phoenix's problems could reach a total of $2.2 billion by 2023.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Mon, Apr 6, 2020 at 5:28 AM Jim Manley via cctalk wrote: > Speaking of COBOL and Admiral Grace Hopper, I have one of her actual > nanoseconds, a piece of insulated solid wire about 11.2 inches long, when > she was a Superintendent's guest lecturer. Since I was a Navy MSCS > student, she "signed" it with stripes and gaps in magic marker, as the ones > and zeroes in ASCII representing her name. Very cool. I was supposed to get one of her nanoseconds as a speaker's gift at a tech convention but they didn't get the packet in time. Obviously one can make a reproduction but the actual artifact would have been cool to receive. > As for learning computing, I have a slightly different range of students > that are my charges than present company. It starts with kindergartners > and ends with adults of all ages in colleges and universities... Definitely an interesting progression there. The tangible nature of pennies in egg cups is quite useful for the younger learners. I was in elementary school in the early 70s, on the tail end of the New Math. We had Cuisenaire rods for learning about area and volume (and powers of 10), and around second grade, we delved into alternate number bases. We touched on Base-6 and Base-8 because that was in the mathbooks, but our teacher put more emphasis on Base-2. We didn't just treat them like plain numbers, we encoded letters (how many 7-year-olds can resist writing secret messages!) We did the obvious at first, 5-bit groups with 0 for space and 1 for A, etc., and found that long sequences were quite tedious to write (and more tedious to read). We then came up with the idea (with prodding from the teacher, no doubt) to substitute letters for sequences of 1s or 0s. T for 111, F for 000, for example. As I recall, we had subs for 5, 4, and 3 sequential identical binary digits (there being little reward for subbing 2). With a dictionary of 8 symbols, we had obfuscation with light compression. I started programming BASIC on the PET about 4 years later. Learning Boolean operators and bitmasks for I/O registers (to manipulate the PET User Port) was easy after that earlier intro to Binary. Definitely start the kids early on it. > You would be surprised at how many supposedly computing-savvy > people have no idea that computing hardware almost universally executes > everything at the bit level, and that the air around them is filled with > exabits/second of serialized data via all sorts of frequencies and > modulations. No doubt. I work with a lot of developers who have no idea how stuff works below "Objects" (they instantiate an object, send it message and magic happens - all black boxes connected with string). -ethan
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/6/20 2:27 AM, Jim Manley via cctalk wrote: > Speaking of COBOL and Admiral Grace Hopper, I have one of her actual > nanoseconds, a piece of insulated solid wire about 11.2 inches long, when > she was a Superintendent's guest lecturer. Since I was a Navy MSCS > student, she "signed" it with stripes and gaps in magic marker, as the ones > and zeroes in ASCII representing her name. > Parenthetically, it should be mentioned that the US Navy played an important part in COBOL certification. One standard requirement for vendors back in the day wss passing the "Navy Audit Tests" (CCVS). In particular, I remember that one could tell where one was in the test suite by the sounds that the tape drives made when writing short records of various lengths. It was LOUD, even with the tape drive door closed. The "audit tests" were as much a test of the COBOL compiler as of the operating system. --Chuck
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
Another article on this subject today. This one claims the Mainframe in question is 40 years old. Maybe it really is a 360/40. :-) bill
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Fred Cisin wrote: I still believe that the best FIRST exposure to computer programming should be BASIC. VERY FIRST program should have instant gratification, without having had to already learn underlying structures, variable types, how to run a compiler, etc. After creating first program, and a few more, in a very short time, it would then be sensible to evaluate what kind of programming is most interesting, and switch to the most appropriate language. Having already created a few token programs, it is then less onerous to learn compilers, data types, system overhead, "ENVIRONMENT DIVISION", etc. A friend of mine started out with BDS C and never did get around to learning BASIC... Q: If Bill Gates hadn't written a BASIC interpreter, where would we be now? I strongly suspect someone else would have come out with one. Tiny BASIC may have happened earlier. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
> On Apr 5, 2020, at 6:17 PM, Antonio Carlini via cctalk > wrote: > > On 05/04/2020 22:27, Neil Thompson via cctalk wrote: >> I'm convinced that Dijksta (and anyone else who came out with similar >> comments were full of horseshit. In my opinion, it's the ability to >> translate a real world "thing" into an algorithm that is the essense of >> programming, > > > Dijkstra was a computer scientist not a computer programmer. The two are only > tangentially related! That's clearly not true. He was hired as a programmer, the first in the country, by the Mathematical Center. And he wrote a number of major programs: the first implementation of the Shortest Path algorithm, the world's first ALGOL compiler, and the THE operating system -- among others. Also the BIOS for the Electrologica X1 computer, which was the topic of his Ph.D. thesis. It's true that later on he focused on computer science theory, but to claim that he didn't know about programming shows a lack of understanding of his history. BTW, the reason he didn't like the IBM 1620 is that you can't build a multiprogramming OS on it since it has no interrupts and uses blocking I/O. paul
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/6/20 1:35 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: One of these days, when I have time, I'll go into one of the more bizarre COBOL implementations, involving inter-process communication with "chains" of modules being resident either wholly or in part in one of several mainframes or in bulk core, with comm links extending throughout the US. cf. "Zodiac" done for the USAF Logistics Command. Huge failure, but oh my stars and garters, what a project! 1500 GSA programmers, all writing COBOL, with 70 vendor support people. It was fun, even if it did get Proxmire's "Golden Fleece" award for two years running... How much of that failure was due to the incompetence of the contractor programmers? I worked on some COBOL for the Navy once. These were very old programs that had moved between a number of different systems in their lifetime. One of the moves was from flat files to a database system. Contractors did the conversion. The program connected to the database. Did a series of FETCHes to read all the data and write it in to a flat file. And then processed the flat file using all the original logic. I won't go into all the other trash, like using unsigned data items for intermediate results in computations!! bill
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Mon, 6 Apr 2020 at 11:28, Jim Manley via cctalk wrote: > > Speaking of COBOL and Admiral Grace Hopper, I have one of her actual > nanoseconds, a piece of insulated solid wire about 11.2 inches long, when > she was a Superintendent's guest lecturer. Since I was a Navy MSCS > student, she "signed" it with stripes and gaps in magic marker, as the ones > and zeroes in ASCII representing her name. > > An enterprising headhunter scoured retirement communities in Florida, > Texas, Arizona, etc., in 1999, looking for COBOL programmers who knew where > the two-digit dates were in the code. In many cases, the source had been > lost by the 1990s, so they really had to know the code. AIUI, the Federal > Reserve and many banking systems still run COBOL executables that have been > wrapped to enable them to be run on modern OSes on current hardware, much > as FORTRAN executables run on NASA missions, such as the Mars orbiters, > landers, and rovers. Rewriting such code would introduce bugs galore, > especially anything contracted out by the government to the lowest bidder. > > As for learning computing, I have a slightly different range of students > that are my charges than present company. It starts with kindergartners > and ends with adults of all ages in colleges and universities. OK, so what > the heck can a kindergartner possibly learn about computing? Notice that I > didn't say computer science, that's a subset of computing. Computing > encompasses mathematics, physics, science, engineering, hardware, software, > and all of the more specialized areas under each of those major > categories. Programming isn't even up toward the top, any more than > soldering is, although my students all learn some things that will be > useful throughout their lives, no matter where they wind up career-wise. > > Here's what kindergartners can learn about computing: the concepts of > something and nothing, and that there is literally money in computers. > Huh? The little ones don't even see a one or a zero when I start them out > - we start with one of the most fundamental concepts in computing that even > some freshman CS students often don't comprehend, the difference between > something and nothing. I ask them to identify opposites that they can > sense, such as light and dark, a marble and an absence of a marble, left > and right hands, magnets that attract and magnets that repel, etc. > > Eventually, we graduate to pennies: nice, shiny, brand-new-from-the-bank > pennies that, to a kindergartner, are actual gold. They play with the > pennies to discover that they can roll around, and learn that they're not > food or nasal suppositories, under careful supervision by multiple adults. > They also find out that there is another opposites concept: heads and > tails, which we acknowledge as what we educators call a scaffolding > element, upon which other concepts will be built later. > > They're then provided egg cartons, which enables them to start learning the > concept of organization, which even many adults never get close to > mastering. After a while, the tykes are encouraged to toss the pennies > short distances and they learn that the pennies just happen to fit nicely > at the bottom of the egg-holding parts of the cartons. That's when I begin > repeating the mantra to them every day: "There's literally money in > computers. There's literally money in computers ... " When they start > repeating it at home, their parents/guardians thank me profusely when they > see me. > > Now the magic begins - the kids are shown that patterns can be created with > shiny pennies and not-so-shiny empty holes. I collect egg cartons from > institutional kitchens that use real in-the-shell eggs, e.g. breakfast > places like IHOP, Denny's, etc., that serve eggs sunny-side-up/down. Very > few kitchens use real eggs any more unless they're serving dishes with > actual yolks and whites - omelettes, scrambled eggs, baked goods, etc., are > all made with powdered eggs or liquid egg mixtures, even at what you might > consider upscale restaurants. The cartons they use are upwards of > eight-by-eight eggs in size, which stack nicely for storage, as well as > rapid access to make lots of whole, fresh egg dishes. > > You might be seeing where I'm going with the eight-by-eight cartons, > because they're ideal for representing arrays of bits as bytes, with rows > potentially representing successive memory locations, registers, graphics > buffers, etc. Of course, the kindergartners aren't going to understand > anything about those sorts of concepts, but by the time I do get to them, > they don't think twice about manipulating pennies in egg cartons. > > In the higher grades, I teach them binary math after we map pennies to > ones and the egg holes to zeroes. They haven't learned decimal numbers and > math at that point, yet, so this is a terrific opportunity to get them > comfortable with bits without the confusion of seeing 10 and
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
Speaking of COBOL and Admiral Grace Hopper, I have one of her actual nanoseconds, a piece of insulated solid wire about 11.2 inches long, when she was a Superintendent's guest lecturer. Since I was a Navy MSCS student, she "signed" it with stripes and gaps in magic marker, as the ones and zeroes in ASCII representing her name. An enterprising headhunter scoured retirement communities in Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc., in 1999, looking for COBOL programmers who knew where the two-digit dates were in the code. In many cases, the source had been lost by the 1990s, so they really had to know the code. AIUI, the Federal Reserve and many banking systems still run COBOL executables that have been wrapped to enable them to be run on modern OSes on current hardware, much as FORTRAN executables run on NASA missions, such as the Mars orbiters, landers, and rovers. Rewriting such code would introduce bugs galore, especially anything contracted out by the government to the lowest bidder. As for learning computing, I have a slightly different range of students that are my charges than present company. It starts with kindergartners and ends with adults of all ages in colleges and universities. OK, so what the heck can a kindergartner possibly learn about computing? Notice that I didn't say computer science, that's a subset of computing. Computing encompasses mathematics, physics, science, engineering, hardware, software, and all of the more specialized areas under each of those major categories. Programming isn't even up toward the top, any more than soldering is, although my students all learn some things that will be useful throughout their lives, no matter where they wind up career-wise. Here's what kindergartners can learn about computing: the concepts of something and nothing, and that there is literally money in computers. Huh? The little ones don't even see a one or a zero when I start them out - we start with one of the most fundamental concepts in computing that even some freshman CS students often don't comprehend, the difference between something and nothing. I ask them to identify opposites that they can sense, such as light and dark, a marble and an absence of a marble, left and right hands, magnets that attract and magnets that repel, etc. Eventually, we graduate to pennies: nice, shiny, brand-new-from-the-bank pennies that, to a kindergartner, are actual gold. They play with the pennies to discover that they can roll around, and learn that they're not food or nasal suppositories, under careful supervision by multiple adults. They also find out that there is another opposites concept: heads and tails, which we acknowledge as what we educators call a scaffolding element, upon which other concepts will be built later. They're then provided egg cartons, which enables them to start learning the concept of organization, which even many adults never get close to mastering. After a while, the tykes are encouraged to toss the pennies short distances and they learn that the pennies just happen to fit nicely at the bottom of the egg-holding parts of the cartons. That's when I begin repeating the mantra to them every day: "There's literally money in computers. There's literally money in computers ... " When they start repeating it at home, their parents/guardians thank me profusely when they see me. Now the magic begins - the kids are shown that patterns can be created with shiny pennies and not-so-shiny empty holes. I collect egg cartons from institutional kitchens that use real in-the-shell eggs, e.g. breakfast places like IHOP, Denny's, etc., that serve eggs sunny-side-up/down. Very few kitchens use real eggs any more unless they're serving dishes with actual yolks and whites - omelettes, scrambled eggs, baked goods, etc., are all made with powdered eggs or liquid egg mixtures, even at what you might consider upscale restaurants. The cartons they use are upwards of eight-by-eight eggs in size, which stack nicely for storage, as well as rapid access to make lots of whole, fresh egg dishes. You might be seeing where I'm going with the eight-by-eight cartons, because they're ideal for representing arrays of bits as bytes, with rows potentially representing successive memory locations, registers, graphics buffers, etc. Of course, the kindergartners aren't going to understand anything about those sorts of concepts, but by the time I do get to them, they don't think twice about manipulating pennies in egg cartons. In the higher grades, I teach them binary math after we map pennies to ones and the egg holes to zeroes. They haven't learned decimal numbers and math at that point, yet, so this is a terrific opportunity to get them comfortable with bits without the confusion of seeing 10 and reflexively reading it as ten - it's always pronounced "one zero". At that point, they can learn the four rules for binary addition: 0 + 0 = 0, 0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 0 = 1, and 1 + 1 = 0 and carry 1 to the next
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
Great Fortran, APL and COBOL my main languages, with a sprinkling of DCL. - Original Message - > From: "General Discussion, On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: "Fred Cisin" , "General Discussion, On-Topic and > Off-Topic Posts" > Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2020 4:37:11 PM > Subject: Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers > On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > >> On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, geneb wrote: >>> I'm pretty sure he said that about BASIC, and I'm totally bummed he died >>> before I could bitch slap him over it. ;) >> >> well, close. >> His BASIC quote is: >> "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have >> had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally >> mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." >> > > That doesn't explain the millions of kids that got their start in BASIC > and grew up to learn skills that could wipe the floor with him... > >> Here is one copy of his 1975 paper, "How Do We Tell Truths That Might Hurt": >> https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html >> > > The problem is that it's not a "truth", it's horseshit, plain and simple. > People that think so much of themselves that they consider their opinions > to have the weight of fact just make me froth at the mouth. :) > >> I don't know what language(s), if any, that he liked. > > Then he should have sat down, shut up, and let the adults talk. ;) > > g. > > > -- > Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 > http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. > http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. > Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. > > ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment > A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. > http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
One of these days, when I have time, I'll go into one of the more bizarre COBOL implementations, involving inter-process communication with "chains" of modules being resident either wholly or in part in one of several mainframes or in bulk core, with comm links extending throughout the US. cf. "Zodiac" done for the USAF Logistics Command. Huge failure, but oh my stars and garters, what a project! 1500 GSA programmers, all writing COBOL, with 70 vendor support people. It was fun, even if it did get Proxmire's "Golden Fleece" award for two years running... --Chuck
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
At 16:12 05-04-20, you wrote: On 4/5/20 6:28 PM, geneb via cctalk wrote: On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Neil Thompson via cctalk wrote: I'm convinced that Dijksta (and anyone else who came out with similar comments were full of horseshit. In my opinion, it's the ability to translate a real world "thing" into an algorithm that is the essense of programming, and anyone who has managed to learn (particularly on their own, as many of us did) that ability has learned something that transcends the language (or tool) you use to implement the algorithm. When I first started programming professionally, we had "programmers" (or sometimes designers) who specified the algorithms and "coders" who implemented them. That never worked well Yep. You can write horrible code in /any/ language. ;) BTW, I scanned & uploaded this last week. Oddly relevant. https://archive.org/details/cobolcodingform I still have lots of them. And Printer Output Forms. And Fortran Programming Forms. And all kinds of other Programming forms. And Flow Chart Forms. You know all that stuff we actually used to engineer programs before the software engineers came along and said we were all doing wrong. bill Ran into a bunch of my FORTRAN programs from over 50 years ago as well as the obligatory flowcharts I would do first before writing a single line of code. Code written in pencil so could erase errors and only then would I use a keypunch for final version. Also a few FORTRAN coding forms. Back then, with sometimes a 48 hour delay between submitting my card deck and getting program output, it was well worth spending an hour or two to print out contents of cards and carefully check that there weren't missing commas and or other errors that would mean correcting the stupid mistake and resubmitting ones card deck. Never got into COBOL as my main interest was real-time computing and so next step up was access to PDP-8 which had FOCAL and quickly learned that programming in assembler was the way to go. Still like assembly language programming and suspect my early experience of learning to code in an environment where there wasn't really a dividing line between software and hardware (people would build custom boards for PDP-8's/PDP-11's to speed up data acquisition) that the biggest change I made in my programming style was to switch to VB as it allowed me to easily create the graphical interface I needed but still let me link to C or Assembler routines in my VB6 code until windoze became too locked down to be of any use. Still haven't got all my VB6 programs running under Wine on Linux but at least Linux has FORTRAN and C. Part of what I've noticed is that I can't sit down at a keyboard and write code (as one is supposed to do nowadays) and it turns into a total mess. I still use flowcharts when I'm dealing with tricky code and the nice thing about flowcharts is that one can easily create a hardware state machine from them. Was nice in 1970's, but now a Propeller chip, even using interperted Spin code, works far faster than the TTL state machines I used to make. Other paleo-programmer related deficits include being totally unable to use RDB and still make use of linked lists and hash tables to create my databases as have been doing this for 50 years. Software Tools was probably the most important book I read in 1983 as it got me out of my rut of writing a massive FORTRAN program to do a specific task that I'd have no idea how to modify even 6 months later to small useful tools that could be strung together. Back then engineers I worked with would have total disdain for Comp-Sci types who would still be working out their code indentation scheme while we would already be using a quickly written throwaway program to perform a particular task. The other thing I should bring up is that my wife is after me to get rid of a lot of my old books. While rumaging through the attic of my shop found boxes of old computer books which I'd like to keep but have been told that if I haven't looked at them in 15 years that it's unlikely I will in future. Will check in see if some of them have been scanned onto bitsavers or other sites but have 68000 programming books, 6502 and other microprocessor related books as well as lots of Mac books when I just had to get into the guts of a Mac to do what I wanted. Have a number of PDP-11 Unibus cards which likely won't use and will have to get all of that sorted out. Once have a list of what I've got will post it on my web site. I live in Kamloops, BC if there's anyone on this list who lives close by who's interested.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/2020 8:46 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: > On 4/5/2020 6:44 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: > >>> Q: If Bill Gates hadn't written a BASIC interpreter, where would we >>> be now? >>> >>> >> >> Sounds like you've never heard of Lisp. >> > > All the old programmers speak with a LISP. > I view computer science ... teaching is what 'trending now' since > schools promote grinding out students, not teaching real world problems. > As for Gates, the right place at the right time, and having access to a > main frame. On 4/5/2020 8:46 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:> On 4/5/2020 6:44 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: > >>> Q: If Bill Gates hadn't written a BASIC interpreter, where would we >>> be now? >>> >>> >> >> Sounds like you've never heard of Lisp. >> > > All the old programmers speak with a LISP. > I view computer science ... teaching is what 'trending now' since > schools promote grinding out students, not teaching real world problems. > As for Gates, the right place at the right time, and having access to a > main frame. Well, I'd have called the PDP-10 a minicomputer nonetheless, but that's just me. ;) Plus, he was essentially stealing campus resources for personal aggrandizement. Its one thing to mess around learning stuff outside of a course setting. Quite another to take that time, without even asking, in order to turn a profit. Not a fan. As for Lots of Insipid Stupid Parentheses - I can't see that as a beginning language. For anyone. Of the many many (well over a hundred) programmers I worked with outside of a university setting, less than a handful had even *heard* of it. As for teaching, there are multiple needs. One size doesn't fit all institutions. One is plain old programming. That does get taught in computer science at universities, but it really ought to be just a means to an end: learning about how programs get written, how to compile them, data structures, semaphores, and so on. During my ECE & CS studies, aside from my student job, I got exposed to: BASIC (1 day) and FORTRAN (both while still in HS), ALGOL (2 dialects), at least 4 different assemblers/machine languages, SNOBOL, LISP, PLUS (Programming Language for UNIVAC Systems - their PL/S), AMINOL (You won't find anything about that anywhere any more), PLUM (Maryland's PL/I subset). During my student jobs I picked up 1410 Autocoder, COBOL and a tiny bit of System/370 Assembler. I learned about data structures up the wazoo: linked lists, stacks, activation records for block structure languages (3 times), and heaven only knows what else, with exposure in many courses. Also multitasking/multiprocessing and all that went with that in multiple courses. And performance measurement and management. [FWIW, this was a time before PASCAL and databases] I got exposed to s much stuff that picking up anything else later was essentially trivial. So, when I got to a 360/65-MP and had to do Assember and COBOL no biggy. When we had an Amdahl 470 that was fast enough that poorly designed software had threading issues (as in an idiot developer of a commercial product that expected to use MVS task dispatching priority to avoid deadlocks), that was easy too. As was teaching my co-workers how to use a stack structure to implement a recursive algorithm without having to do recursive subroutine calls. I was able to explain to the other system programmers what happened when utilization of a resource gets to me more than about 80% (think disk queue) and how fast things go to Hades in a handbasket. Queing theory came in handier than heck when I was able to model the effect of response time store and retrieve image documents and demonstrate to our management and our vendor that we would have lines around the block - the project got delayed a year as a result. That is the kind of thing a Computer Science program ought to be doing. Teaching advanced techniques and concepts that can be used in situations folks haven't even discovered that show up 30 years hence. These are things that MOST ordinary programmers are not likely to learn or even need as long as they have access to that kind of expertise. Some call it "ivory tower", but I hope my explanation has shown that there is MUCH more to it than that. (Of course, there are some who learn such stuff and can never apply it, just as there are engineers that can't apply knowledge in that domain, either. That isn't the fault of the university. That is the fault of the student or whomever pushed the student into a situation they were either not a good fit for, or were not sufficiently prepared for.) BUT, outside of a 4 year degree environment, ah, that is an entirely different story. THAT is where we should be teaching "real world problems". Stuff that folks can use immediately to land, keep and succeed at a job. How to do the things that developers encounter each and every day. Current technology and practices and languages that folks are actually using every day. Think about it
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
It was thus said that the Great Fred Cisin via cctalk once stated: > >>Edsger Dijksta said, "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching > >>should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." > > On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, geneb wrote: > >I'm pretty sure he said that about BASIC, and I'm totally bummed he died > >before I could bitch slap him over it. ;) > > well, close. > His BASIC quote is: > "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that > have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are > mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." > > Here is one copy of his 1975 paper, "How Do We Tell Truths That Might > Hurt": > https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html > > I don't know what language(s), if any, that he liked. Math. -spc (Had some comp-sci profs who didn't like programming or computers)
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/2020 6:44 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: Q: If Bill Gates hadn't written a BASIC interpreter, where would we be now? Sounds like you've never heard of Lisp. All the old programmers speak with a LISP. I view computer science ... teaching is what 'trending now' since schools promote grinding out students, not teaching real world problems. As for Gates, the right place at the right time, and having access to a main frame.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
I still believe that the best FIRST exposure to computer programming should be BASIC. VERY FIRST program should have instant gratification, without having had to already learn underlying structures, variable types, how to run a compiler, etc. After creating first program, and a few more, in a very short time, it would then be sensible to evaluate what kind of programming is most interesting, and switch to the most appropriate language. Having already created a few token programs, it is then less onerous to learn compilers, data types, system overhead, "ENVIRONMENT DIVISION", etc. On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Toby Thain wrote: Sounds like you've never heard of Lisp. LISP is a reasonable alternative starter language. I PREFER BASIC for beginners, because I have met a few that have difficulty fully understanding parentheses, and BASIC is a trivial transfer to FORTRAN and a few other languages in that group.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 2020-04-05 8:40 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >>> well, close. >>> His BASIC quote is: >>> "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students >>> that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers >>> they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." >>> Here is one copy of his 1975 paper, "How Do We Tell Truths That Might >>> Hurt": >>> https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html > > On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, geneb wrote: >> That doesn't explain the millions of kids that got their start in >> BASIC and grew up to learn skills that could wipe the floor with him... > > I still believe that the best FIRST exposure to computer programming > should be BASIC. VERY FIRST program should have instant gratification, > without having had to already learn underlying structures, variable > types, how to run a compiler, etc. After creating first program, and a > few more, in a very short time, it would then be sensible to evaluate > what kind of programming is most interesting, and switch to the most > appropriate language. Having already created a few token programs, it > is then less onerous to learn compilers, data types, system overhead, > "ENVIRONMENT DIVISION", etc. > > > Q: If Bill Gates hadn't written a BASIC interpreter, where would we be now? > > Sounds like you've never heard of Lisp.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
well, close. His BASIC quote is: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." Here is one copy of his 1975 paper, "How Do We Tell Truths That Might Hurt": https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, geneb wrote: That doesn't explain the millions of kids that got their start in BASIC and grew up to learn skills that could wipe the floor with him... I still believe that the best FIRST exposure to computer programming should be BASIC. VERY FIRST program should have instant gratification, without having had to already learn underlying structures, variable types, how to run a compiler, etc. After creating first program, and a few more, in a very short time, it would then be sensible to evaluate what kind of programming is most interesting, and switch to the most appropriate language. Having already created a few token programs, it is then less onerous to learn compilers, data types, system overhead, "ENVIRONMENT DIVISION", etc. Q: If Bill Gates hadn't written a BASIC interpreter, where would we be now?
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, geneb via cctalk wrote: Yep. You can write horrible code in /any/ language. ;) . . . and a REAL programmer can write FORTRAN in any language.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/20 6:28 PM, Peter Schow via cctalk wrote: On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 4:18 PM Antonio Carlini via cctalk wrote: Dijkstra was a computer scientist not a computer programmer. The two are only tangentially related! It's funny that you say this because Dijkstra explictly calls himself a programmer in his 1972 ACM Turing Award Lecture: "I married, and Dutch marriage rites require you to state your professionand I stated that i was a programmer." Claiming it doesn't necessarily make it so. bill
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/20 6:28 PM, geneb via cctalk wrote: On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Neil Thompson via cctalk wrote: I'm convinced that Dijksta (and anyone else who came out with similar comments were full of horseshit. In my opinion, it's the ability to translate a real world "thing" into an algorithm that is the essense of programming, and anyone who has managed to learn (particularly on their own, as many of us did) that ability has learned something that transcends the language (or tool) you use to implement the algorithm. When I first started programming professionally, we had "programmers" (or sometimes designers) who specified the algorithms and "coders" who implemented them. That never worked well Yep. You can write horrible code in /any/ language. ;) BTW, I scanned & uploaded this last week. Oddly relevant. https://archive.org/details/cobolcodingform I still have lots of them. And Printer Output Forms. And Fortran Programming Forms. And all kinds of other Programming forms. And Flow Chart Forms. You know all that stuff we actually used to engineer programs before the software engineers came along and said we were all doing wrong. bill
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/20 4:39 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: On 4/5/2020 12:47 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: On 4/4/20 10:15 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: Stories like this abound. Wasn't California DMV running RCA Spectrolas well into the 80s? --Chuck I did write some COBOL on the IBM 1410 which I worked on while I was a student (COBOL for which was surprisingly capable), DOS/VS, OS/360, MVS, and so on. I found it to be: I got my Computer Science degree in '86 and most of the programming for my classwork was in C and ran on BSD UNIX on a 11/750. I also worked in the school's computer center on a DECsystem-20. My first job out of school was doing system software at Burroughs. The stuff that I was working on initially ran on all three lines of Burroughs mainframes sold at the time and, at Burroughs then, that meant it was written in COBOL. So, my first week at Burroughs was spent learning COBOL. At school, everyone said that COBOL was evil. But after I had worked with it for a while, though I thought it was verbose, I didn't find it that bad to work with. alan
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/2020 4:02 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: I'm reminded of a T-shirt company that was around when I was in college, named "Outer products". They had various math and physics related shirts, for example with Maxwell's equations (your choice of differential or integral form). Also one with the first 4 lines of the Odyssey. For computer geeks they had quite a bunch, including this particularly cryptic one for COBOL programmers (.)(.) IKF4084I paul https://www.zazzle.com/ikf4084i_c_t_shirt-235922162936523884 -- Jim Brain br...@jbrain.com www.jbrain.com
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/2020 12:47 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 4/4/20 10:15 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > > Stories like this abound. Wasn't California DMV running RCA Spectrolas > well into the 80s? > > --Chuck > I kind of doubt that, unless they had a version of IBM's IMS for it -- which I find unlikely, though I suppose maybe they had some of those along side real (or compatible) IBM hardware. I worked for Wisconsin DOT from 1975 until 2012. Just before I got there, they had completed their own quite competent DMBS, which was written (in assembler) because IBM's IMS was too inefficient and ADABAS was too expensive. (That DBMS was still running some production when I left, in parallel with DB2 but has since been retired.) They learned IMS had issues when they talked with California, who told them that at any one time a substantial part of their (either Drivers or Motor Vehicle) database was offline at ANY time because it needed reorganization. I did write some COBOL on the IBM 1410 which I worked on while I was a student (COBOL for which was surprisingly capable), DOS/VS, OS/360, MVS, and so on. I found it to be: - Very cumbersome and visually inefficient - Error prone - Harder than heck to read So, mildly better than Assembler, but I'll take C and its descendents over COBOL any day for anything. Indeed I was responsible for introducing C into our organization in the 1980's -- I was exposed to it, and UNIX just about the same time I went to work for WisDOT. JRJ
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
> On April 5, 2020 at 5:28 PM Peter Schow via cctalk > wrote: > > On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 4:18 PM Antonio Carlini via > cctalk wrote:> Dijkstra was a computer scientist not a > computer programmer. The two areonly tangentially related!It's funny that you > say this because Dijkstra explictly calls himselfa programmer in his 1972 ACM > Turing Award Lecture: > "I married, and Dutch marriage rites require you to state yourprofessionand I > stated that i was a programmer." He called himself a programmer in 1957, and even that description wasn't allowed. I don't think the term "computer scientist" existed yet. Another two years later, in 1957, I married and Dutch marriage rites require you to state your profession and I stated that I was a programmer. But the municipal authorities of the town of Amsterdam did not accept it on the grounds that there was no such profession. And, believe it or not, but under the heading “profession” my marriage act shows the ridiculous entry “theoretical physicist”! https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340.html Will
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 4:18 PM Antonio Carlini via cctalk wrote: > Dijkstra was a computer scientist not a computer programmer. The two are > only tangentially related! It's funny that you say this because Dijkstra explictly calls himself a programmer in his 1972 ACM Turing Award Lecture: "I married, and Dutch marriage rites require you to state your professionand I stated that i was a programmer."
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Neil Thompson via cctalk wrote: I'm convinced that Dijksta (and anyone else who came out with similar comments were full of horseshit. In my opinion, it's the ability to translate a real world "thing" into an algorithm that is the essense of programming, and anyone who has managed to learn (particularly on their own, as many of us did) that ability has learned something that transcends the language (or tool) you use to implement the algorithm. When I first started programming professionally, we had "programmers" (or sometimes designers) who specified the algorithms and "coders" who implemented them. That never worked well Yep. You can write horrible code in /any/ language. ;) BTW, I scanned & uploaded this last week. Oddly relevant. https://archive.org/details/cobolcodingform g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 05/04/2020 22:27, Neil Thompson via cctalk wrote: I'm convinced that Dijksta (and anyone else who came out with similar comments were full of horseshit. In my opinion, it's the ability to translate a real world "thing" into an algorithm that is the essense of programming, Dijkstra was a computer scientist not a computer programmer. The two are only tangentially related! I only ever managed to get to one of his guest lectures, which I found to be very entertaining. I'm glad I was never one of his students :-) Antonio -- Antonio Carlini anto...@acarlini.com
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/20 2:27 PM, Neil Thompson via cctalk wrote: > I'm convinced that Dijksta (and anyone else who came out with similar > comments were full of horseshit. In my opinion, it's the ability to > translate a real world "thing" into an algorithm that is the essense of > programming, and anyone who has managed to learn (particularly on their > own, as many of us did) that ability has learned something that transcends > the language (or tool) you use to implement the algorithm. When I first > started programming professionally, we had "programmers" (or sometimes > designers) who specified the algorithms and "coders" who implemented them. > That never worked well Well, IIRC< Dijkstra hated the IBM 1620 too, but lots of work was done with it. So, there are opinions and then there is reality. In that respect, nothing's changed. --Chuck
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 23:02, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > I'm reminded of a T-shirt company that was around when I was in college, > named "Outer products". They had various math and physics related shirts, > for example with Maxwell's equations (your choice of differential or integral > form). Also one with the first 4 lines of the Odyssey. > > For computer geeks they had quite a bunch, including this particularly > cryptic one for COBOL programmers > > (.)(.) > IKF4084I ILLOGICAL USE OF PARENTHESES OR RELATIONALS ACCEPTED WITH DOUBTS AS TO MEANING. ...? The T-shirts are still out there, I am amused to see. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
I'm convinced that Dijksta (and anyone else who came out with similar comments were full of horseshit. In my opinion, it's the ability to translate a real world "thing" into an algorithm that is the essense of programming, and anyone who has managed to learn (particularly on their own, as many of us did) that ability has learned something that transcends the language (or tool) you use to implement the algorithm. When I first started programming professionally, we had "programmers" (or sometimes designers) who specified the algorithms and "coders" who implemented them. That never worked well On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 22:37, geneb via cctalk wrote: > On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > > On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, geneb wrote: > >> I'm pretty sure he said that about BASIC, and I'm totally bummed he > died > >> before I could bitch slap him over it. ;) > > > > well, close. > > His BASIC quote is: > > "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that > have > > had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are > mentally > > mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." > > > > That doesn't explain the millions of kids that got their start in BASIC > and grew up to learn skills that could wipe the floor with him... > > > Here is one copy of his 1975 paper, "How Do We Tell Truths That Might > Hurt": > > https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html > > > > The problem is that it's not a "truth", it's horseshit, plain and simple. > People that think so much of themselves that they consider their opinions > to have the weight of fact just make me froth at the mouth. :) > > > I don't know what language(s), if any, that he liked. > > Then he should have sat down, shut up, and let the adults talk. ;) > > g. > > > -- > Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 > http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. > http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. > Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. > > ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment > A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. > http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! >
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
I'm reminded of a T-shirt company that was around when I was in college, named "Outer products". They had various math and physics related shirts, for example with Maxwell's equations (your choice of differential or integral form). Also one with the first 4 lines of the Odyssey. For computer geeks they had quite a bunch, including this particularly cryptic one for COBOL programmers (.)(.) IKF4084I paul
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, geneb wrote: I'm pretty sure he said that about BASIC, and I'm totally bummed he died before I could bitch slap him over it. ;) well, close. His BASIC quote is: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." That doesn't explain the millions of kids that got their start in BASIC and grew up to learn skills that could wipe the floor with him... Here is one copy of his 1975 paper, "How Do We Tell Truths That Might Hurt": https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html The problem is that it's not a "truth", it's horseshit, plain and simple. People that think so much of themselves that they consider their opinions to have the weight of fact just make me froth at the mouth. :) I don't know what language(s), if any, that he liked. Then he should have sat down, shut up, and let the adults talk. ;) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
Edsger Dijksta said, "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, geneb wrote: I'm pretty sure he said that about BASIC, and I'm totally bummed he died before I could bitch slap him over it. ;) well, close. His BASIC quote is: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." Here is one copy of his 1975 paper, "How Do We Tell Truths That Might Hurt": https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html I don't know what language(s), if any, that he liked.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
They were told to update their software. Now, 20 years later, they are looking for COBOL programmers, to start the update project. On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Stefan Skoglund wrote: To be fair, in this case updating your software means: throw out the baby with the water build a completely new IT infrastructure with everything and expect things to work badly the next 5-8 years long enough to hinder/(be a millstone around) the governor's re- election campagin and then in 15 years, be prepared to redo Pundits like this steinberg is right and wrong - they doesn't acknowledge how expensive new fangled information technology is. I notice that he is one who equates changing/updating software with security. If a project is needed, and takes a long time, taking a long time is not a good reason to avoid getting started. Napoleon ordered planting of a lot of trees. I'm told that one of his officers didn't want to get around to it, because they would take a long time to grow; Napoleon said that that was a good reason to do it immediately. (No, I can't find the quote)
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
There were a lot of differing opinions, some of which held out over time. Even Fred Brooks had to admit that David Parnas was right about data encapsulation On 05/04/2020 15:53, geneb via cctalk wrote: On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: Edsger Dijksta said, "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." I'm pretty sure he said that about BASIC, and I'm totally bummed he died before I could bitch slap him over it. ;) g. -- Nigel Johnson MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept! You can reach me by voice on Skype: TILBURY2591 If time travel ever will be possible, it already is. Ask me again yesterday This e-mail is not and cannot, by its nature, be confidential. En route from me to you, it will pass across the public Internet, easily readable by any number of system administrators along the way. Nigel Johnson Please consider the environment when deciding if you really need to print this message
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: Edsger Dijksta said, "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." I'm pretty sure he said that about BASIC, and I'm totally bummed he died before I could bitch slap him over it. ;) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
https://www.latestly.com/technology/new-jersey-governor-needs-cobol-programmers-as-covid-19-response-volunteers-to-fix-unemployment-insurance-systems-gets-trolled-on-twitter-for-demanding-outdated-technology-1660018.html On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: Yet another article loaded with BS denigrating COBOL. The product of a very flawed academic system that decided to destroy COBOL because its users refused to accept that academics know what's best for the industry. On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: Good luck with that. You could have found them easily enough in the 70s when my folks were taking Cobol classes at the community college and everyone was using it. Now... woof. Edsger Dijksta said, "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." GUILTY as charged. I only taught it (in community college), one semester in the mid 1980s, when our regular colleague was on sabbatical (Jack Olson, who wrote the book, along with Wil Price, our department chair), https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Structured-Cobol-Programming-Wilson/dp/0030580528/ It was a good class, and I don't think that I botched it too badly. For some types of programming, (not MY favorite types of prograamming), COBOL is the right choice. I hope that they don't try to rewrite that project in C, which is otherwise MY language of choice. VOLUNTEERS??!? He could have at least offered to pay in TP. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
> On April 5, 2020 at 11:56 AM Chris Zach via cctalk > wrote: > > > What’s really funny, in a sad way, if you read the article above carefully, > > and you watch the clip.They’re looking for *VOLUNTEERS* to do thbis > > work!That's problematic. And now that I said I know COBOL81, I could > > findmyself kidnapped by NJ Govt agents and chained to a VT05 terminal. > No, no, not 12 lines per screen! HELP It New Jersey. They will simply make you an offer you can't refuse! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeldwfOwuL8
RE: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
Not sure about that. I worked for Pershing in Jersey City around that time. They were (are?) a clearing house for tens of millions of dollars' worth of stock and bond trades every day. Lots of cobol to be remediated still in 1999. Oh, and I also worked on decimalization (stocks used to be traded in 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16ths of a dollar) -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Bill Gunshannon via cctalk Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2020 10:29 AM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers On 4/5/20 12:54 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 4/4/20 9:47 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >> On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: >>> https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-ne >>> eds-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ >>> >> >> In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. >> > > To be fair, in 1999, everybody under the sun was looking for COBOL > programmers. > Not really. The Y2K problem had been addressed and fixed on all the real computer systems long before that. PRIMOS 23.4.Y2K.R1 -- Copyright (c) Prime Computer, Inc. 1988 A Y2K version of the OS released in 1988. bill
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
> On Apr 5, 2020, at 1:27 PM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk > wrote: > > Chris Zach wrote: >> That's problematic. And now that I said I know COBOL81, I could find >> myself kidnapped by NJ Govt agents and chained to a VT05 terminal. >> No, no, not 12 lines per screen! HELP > > Am I wrong in understanding the VT05 was 20 lines, and the VT50 12 > lines? Correct. The VT05 has 72 columns rather than 80. And it requires fill after line feed at higher speeds so the scroll can finish before the next character. paul
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/4/2020 10:54 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: On 4/4/20 9:47 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. To be fair, in 1999, everybody under the sun was looking for COBOL programmers. --Chuck Do they wear trench coats and dark glasses that nobody sees them, and on the side they sell cheap watches from Hong Kong? What about FORTRAN and PL/I?
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/20 7:24 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > Yet another article loaded with BS denigrating COBOL. > The product of a very flawed academic system that decided > to destroy COBOL because its users refused to accept that > academics know what's best for the industry. COBOL was remarkable in several respects. Structured records being one of them. (FLOW-MATIC was actually a bit superior in that the record structure information was separate from the program). Strong data typing was another one. Grace Hopper did a remarkable job keeping the CODASYL show together, long before ANSI took an interest in standardizing languages. On the other hand, there's always PL/I--a language for everybody and nobody. Be ye FORTRAN, COBOL or Algol programmer, you can, like Burger King, have it your way. A co-worker from IBM once told me that the original IBM PL/I committee was a band of misfits. --Chuck
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
Chris Zach wrote: > That's problematic. And now that I said I know COBOL81, I could find > myself kidnapped by NJ Govt agents and chained to a VT05 terminal. > No, no, not 12 lines per screen! HELP Am I wrong in understanding the VT05 was 20 lines, and the VT50 12 lines? By the way, I believe the VT50 character font is slightly different from VT52. Does anyone have the ROMs?
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
What’s really funny, in a sad way, if you read the article above carefully, and you watch the clip. They’re looking for *VOLUNTEERS* to do thbis work! That's problematic. And now that I said I know COBOL81, I could find myself kidnapped by NJ Govt agents and chained to a VT05 terminal. No, no, not 12 lines per screen! HELP
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/20 12:22 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: On Apr 5, 2020, at 6:41 AM, Stefan Skoglund via cctalk wrote: lör 2020-04-04 klockan 21:47 -0700 skrev Fred Cisin via cctalk: On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. They were told to update their software. Now, 20 years later, they are looking for COBOL programmers, to start the update project. To be fair, in this case updating your software means: throw out the baby with the water build a completely new IT infrastructure with everything and expect things to work badly the next 5-8 years long enough to hinder/(be a millstone around) the governor's re- election campagin and then in 15 years, be prepared to redo Pundits like this steinberg is right and wrong - they doesn't acknowledge how expensive new fangled information technology is. What’s really funny, in a sad way, if you read the article above carefully, and you watch the clip. They’re looking for *VOLUNTEERS* to do this work! https://www.latestly.com/technology/new-jersey-governor-needs-cobol-programmers-as-covid-19-response-volunteers-to-fix-unemployment-insurance-systems-gets-trolled-on-twitter-for-demanding-outdated-technology-1660018.html And, if the happen to get those "volunteers", they will get exactly what they paid for and the trade press will get even more rocks to throw at COBOL. bill
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, Apr 5, 2020, 10:26 AM Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Sun, Apr 5, 2020, 10:22 AM Zane Healy via cctalk > wrote: > >> >> >> > On Apr 5, 2020, at 6:41 AM, Stefan Skoglund via cctalk < >> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: >> > >> > lör 2020-04-04 klockan 21:47 -0700 skrev Fred Cisin via cctalk: >> >> On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: >> >>> >> >> >> https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ >> >> >> >> In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. >> >> >> >> They were told to update their software. >> >> >> >> Now, 20 years later, they are looking for COBOL programmers, to start >> >> the >> >> update project. >> >> >> > >> > To be fair, in this case updating your software means: >> > >> > throw out the baby with the water >> > build a completely new IT infrastructure with everything >> > and expect things to work badly the next 5-8 years >> > long enough to hinder/(be a millstone around) the governor's re- >> > election campagin >> > >> > and then in 15 years, be prepared to redo >> > >> > Pundits like this steinberg is right and wrong - they doesn't >> > acknowledge how expensive new fangled information technology is. >> >> What’s really funny, in a sad way, if you read the article above >> carefully, and you watch the clip. They’re looking for *VOLUNTEERS* to do >> this work! >> >> >> https://www.latestly.com/technology/new-jersey-governor-needs-cobol-programmers-as-covid-19-response-volunteers-to-fix-unemployment-insurance-systems-gets-trolled-on-twitter-for-demanding-outdated-technology-1660018.html > > > Good luck with that. You could have found them easily enough in the 70s > when my folks were taking Cobol classes at the community college and > everyone was using it. Now... woof. > https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/05/new_jersey_seeks_cobol_volunteers/ Warner >
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sun, Apr 5, 2020, 10:22 AM Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > > > > On Apr 5, 2020, at 6:41 AM, Stefan Skoglund via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > lör 2020-04-04 klockan 21:47 -0700 skrev Fred Cisin via cctalk: > >> On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: > >>> > >> > https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ > >> > >> In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. > >> > >> They were told to update their software. > >> > >> Now, 20 years later, they are looking for COBOL programmers, to start > >> the > >> update project. > >> > > > > To be fair, in this case updating your software means: > > > > throw out the baby with the water > > build a completely new IT infrastructure with everything > > and expect things to work badly the next 5-8 years > > long enough to hinder/(be a millstone around) the governor's re- > > election campagin > > > > and then in 15 years, be prepared to redo > > > > Pundits like this steinberg is right and wrong - they doesn't > > acknowledge how expensive new fangled information technology is. > > What’s really funny, in a sad way, if you read the article above > carefully, and you watch the clip. They’re looking for *VOLUNTEERS* to do > this work! > > > https://www.latestly.com/technology/new-jersey-governor-needs-cobol-programmers-as-covid-19-response-volunteers-to-fix-unemployment-insurance-systems-gets-trolled-on-twitter-for-demanding-outdated-technology-1660018.html Good luck with that. You could have found them easily enough in the 70s when my folks were taking Cobol classes at the community college and everyone was using it. Now... woof. Warner > >
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
> On Apr 5, 2020, at 6:41 AM, Stefan Skoglund via cctalk > wrote: > > lör 2020-04-04 klockan 21:47 -0700 skrev Fred Cisin via cctalk: >> On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: >>> >> https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ >> >> In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. >> >> They were told to update their software. >> >> Now, 20 years later, they are looking for COBOL programmers, to start >> the >> update project. >> > > To be fair, in this case updating your software means: > > throw out the baby with the water > build a completely new IT infrastructure with everything > and expect things to work badly the next 5-8 years > long enough to hinder/(be a millstone around) the governor's re- > election campagin > > and then in 15 years, be prepared to redo > > Pundits like this steinberg is right and wrong - they doesn't > acknowledge how expensive new fangled information technology is. What’s really funny, in a sad way, if you read the article above carefully, and you watch the clip. They’re looking for *VOLUNTEERS* to do this work! https://www.latestly.com/technology/new-jersey-governor-needs-cobol-programmers-as-covid-19-response-volunteers-to-fix-unemployment-insurance-systems-gets-trolled-on-twitter-for-demanding-outdated-technology-1660018.html Zane
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
Yeah, my contract to a large University fixing all their COBOL stuff finished in October 1998. On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 16:29, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 4/5/20 12:54 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > On 4/4/20 9:47 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > >> On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: > >>> > https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ > >>> > >> > >> In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. > >> > > > > To be fair, in 1999, everybody under the sun was looking for COBOL > > programmers. > > > > Not really. The Y2K problem had been addressed and fixed on all > the real computer systems long before that. > > > PRIMOS 23.4.Y2K.R1 > -- > Copyright (c) Prime Computer, Inc. 1988 > > A Y2K version of the OS released in 1988. > > bill > >
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/5/20 12:54 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: On 4/4/20 9:47 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. To be fair, in 1999, everybody under the sun was looking for COBOL programmers. Not really. The Y2K problem had been addressed and fixed on all the real computer systems long before that. PRIMOS 23.4.Y2K.R1 -- Copyright (c) Prime Computer, Inc. 1988 A Y2K version of the OS released in 1988. bill
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/4/20 11:06 PM, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ Yet another article loaded with BS denigrating COBOL. The product of a very flawed academic system that decided to destroy COBOL because its users refused to accept that academics know what's best for the industry. bill
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
This may have already been said, but I have worked with a little COBOL within MS .NET for fun, some years ago, just to see it run. I am sure that's what they're intending the candidates for this job will have had experience doing. My guess would be it's just as important to be a .NET guru who can update COBOL within that environment as if it was C# or ASP. COBOL/.NET. You would need to assign printers, add option codes, etc.. You would be working with legacy code that is solid, just needs parameter updates stuff like that. Networking, printer configurations and environment tweaks. When I ran COBOL GAP accounting jobs way back when while at DuPont, we used TSO/JCL to set up the jobs. Now a day .NET fulfils that layer. I guess it is possible that an AIX server emulating an early 80's IBM server emulating an IBM 360 is the environment is being used but I bet it was upgraded to .NET years ago. Not so crazy. COBOL is great for things like printing checks. So if you're a .NET guru this might be a fun contract in the $200/hr's. Hmmm... Bill On Sun, Apr 5, 2020, 9:41 AM Stefan Skoglund via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > lör 2020-04-04 klockan 21:47 -0700 skrev Fred Cisin via cctalk: > > On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ > > > > In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. > > > > They were told to update their software. > > > > Now, 20 years later, they are looking for COBOL programmers, to start > > the > > update project. > > > > To be fair, in this case updating your software means: > > throw out the baby with the water > build a completely new IT infrastructure with everything > and expect things to work badly the next 5-8 years > long enough to hinder/(be a millstone around) the governor's re- > election campagin > > and then in 15 years, be prepared to redo > > Pundits like this steinberg is right and wrong - they doesn't > acknowledge how expensive new fangled information technology is. > > >
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
lör 2020-04-04 klockan 21:47 -0700 skrev Fred Cisin via cctalk: > On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: > > > https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ > > In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. > > They were told to update their software. > > Now, 20 years later, they are looking for COBOL programmers, to start > the > update project. > To be fair, in this case updating your software means: throw out the baby with the water build a completely new IT infrastructure with everything and expect things to work badly the next 5-8 years long enough to hinder/(be a millstone around) the governor's re- election campagin and then in 15 years, be prepared to redo Pundits like this steinberg is right and wrong - they doesn't acknowledge how expensive new fangled information technology is.
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/4/20 10:15 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > In 1970, in my absolutely bottom of the totem pole job at Goddard Space > Flight Center, I questioned the use of 2 decimal digits for the year. > (FORTRAN) I was told, "don't be ridiculous. All of this will be redone > long before that, and WE won't be here to be held responsible". > That was also when I learned to write comments before writing code, > since they damn sure wouldn't tolerate taking time to add comments after > the program seemed to work. Heck, up until about 1975, the Air Force Logistics command was using IBM 7080s running COBOL with (undocumented) Autocoder patch decks. Maintenance became an issue of "don't touch it if it works". AFLC eventually updated their systems--to S/370 boxes running in 7080 emulation mode. Stories like this abound. Wasn't California DMV running RCA Spectrolas well into the 80s? --Chuck
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ On 4/4/20 9:47 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. To be fair, in 1999, everybody under the sun was looking for COBOL programmers. --Chuck VERY TRUE. New Jersey is and was far from unique. They are like every other similar installation. We never fix things until we get desperate. What percentage of managers INTEND to update their legacy code base? In 1970, in my absolutely bottom of the totem pole job at Goddard Space Flight Center, I questioned the use of 2 decimal digits for the year. (FORTRAN) I was told, "don't be ridiculous. All of this will be redone long before that, and WE won't be here to be held responsible". That was also when I learned to write comments before writing code, since they damn sure wouldn't tolerate taking time to add comments after the program seemed to work. The entire industry was "taken by surprise" when it came time to deal with Y2K. Not just the computer industry. I re-ordered check blanks from my bank in late 1998. They came with "19__" preprinted for date. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On 4/4/20 9:47 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: >> https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ >> > > In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. > To be fair, in 1999, everybody under the sun was looking for COBOL programmers. --Chuck
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
On Sat, 4 Apr 2020, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ In December 1999, they were looking for COBOL programmers. They were told to update their software. Now, 20 years later, they are looking for COBOL programmers, to start the update project. In another 16 years, they will need to send John Titor back in time to look for a 5100. Maybe by then, they will realize that the 5100 was not the only machine that could run APL. I will repeat my standing offer. In exchange for a ONE-WAY ride to the 1960s, I will get him a 5100, and start an investment portfolio to fund the project. I will now sweeten the deal, and promise to also do COBOL for New Jersey for a few years in the 1990s, to try to help make Y2K less of a surprise for them, and try to get them started updating their software. If the ride is ROUND-TRIP, then he just gets some documentation for the 5100. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
Re: State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
I seem to recall they were using a lot of pdp11's, so oddly enough my Cobol81 skills might be handy here I could even work remotely on my pdp11/73 and hook up to them with DecNet Hm On 4/4/2020 11:06 PM, Jeffrey Brace via cctalk wrote: https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/
State of New Jersey needs COBOL programmers
https://josephsteinberg.com/covid-19-response-new-jersey-urgently-needs-cobol-programmers-yes-you-read-that-correctly/ -- = Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation http://www.vcfed.org/ jeff...@vcfed.org
