BBS:      TELESC.NET.BR
Assunto:  Re: 3.5 Floppies
De:       MIKE POWELL
Data:     Tue, 24 Feb 2026 09:56:00 +0000
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> And I've heard there are still some COBOL jobs, mainly in the government for
> old computer systems.

Part of the reason there are still COBOL jobs is because, so far, any
attempts to replace them with something else usually fail.  I started in
state government in 1997.  Within a few years, there were several ideas to
"modernize" to newer systems... usually fueled by server or software vendors w
ith big promises.

Those projects often ended with a single subsystem existing on the new
platform, taking over a day to process data that the mainframe/COBOL could
process in an hour or two overnight.  Those projects were eventually sunset
and the mainframe was still chugging along.

When I left in 2023, they were busy with another such project.  About a
month ago I met with a former co-worker for lunch.  The project is
continuing to fall several years behind... it was supposed to be mostly
done in 2023... they've managed to get two or three subsystems moved off (well,
partially) but things are still not going well.  Workers are being forced
to do a lot of things manually.

Part of the issue is that the users always realize that they will have to
give a lot of stuff up that they can do now in order to get a server-based
system that has pretty screens.

In short, they can make a lot of pretty screens for users, but most of that
tech is just not up to par when it comes to backend proessing of large
databases.  It takes a lot of expensive server power to replace a mainframe.
Bear in mind that I live in a smaller state, too... the fed's databases must
be much larger than ours.

Don't get me started on the time some numbskull decided that replacing
COBOL with JAVA on the mainframe was a good idea.

 * SLMR 2.1a * Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my disk?!

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