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A Call For COBAL Programmers
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A Call For COBAL Programmers
by Janis Kracht
Link to this article:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/business/coronavirus-cobol-
programmers-new-jersey-trnd/index.html [link wraps]
"Wanted urgently: People who know a half century-old computer
language so states can process unemployment claims"
Do you know cobol? How you can help:
Go to the link at the top of this article to read more, please
Here is part of the article at the above link:
(CNN)On top of ventilators, face masks and health care workers,
you can now add COBOL programmers to the list of what several
states urgently need as they battle the coronavirus pandemic.
In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy has put out a call for
volunteers who know how to code the decades-old computer
programming language called COBOL because many of the state's
systems still run on older mainframes. In Kansas, Gov. Laura
Kelly said the state's Departments of Labor was in the process
of modernizing from COBOL but then the virus interfered. "So
they're operating on really old stuff," she said. Connecticut
has also admitted that it's struggling to process the large
volume of unemployment claims with its "40-year-old system
comprised of a COBOL mainframe and four other separate systems."
The state is working to develop a new benefits system with
Maine, Rhode Island, Mississippi and Oklahoma. But the system
won't be finished before next year. "Literally, we have systems
that are 40-plus-years-old," New Jersey Gov. Murphy said over
the weekend. "There'll be lots of postmortems and one of them
on our list will be how did we get here where we literally
needed COBOL programmers?"
Coders have moved away from the aging language COBOL, which
stands for Common Business Oriented Language, is a computer
programming language that was developed back in 1959, according
to the National Museum of American History. "It's a programming
language that was used to create a very significant percentage
of business systems over the period of the 60s, 70s and even
into the 80s," Joseph Steinberg, an expert on cybersecurity,
told CNN. But over time, coders have moved away from the aging
language. "The general population of COBOL programmers is
generally much older than the average age of a coder," Steinberg
said. "Many American universities have not taught COBOL in
their computer science programs since the 1980s." Yet, the
program persists in systems Despite a dwindling number of COBOL
programmers, a 2017 report by Reuters found that there are still
220 billion lines of COBOL in use today. 43% of banking systems
are built on COBOL and 95% percent of ATM swipes rely on COBOL
code. Even in the federal government, COBOL is being used in
agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department
of Justice and Social Security Administration, according to a
2016 report by the Government Accountability Office. A 2018
report by the inspector general for the Social Security
Administration found that the administration maintained more
than "60 million lines of COBOL" with "millions more lines of
other legacy programming languages." The inspector general urged
the administration to modernize its systems.
With more than 44,000 Covid-19 cases in New Jersey, the last
thing the governor should have to worry about are computer
systems, Steinberg, the cybersecurity expert, said. "Governors
should not have to think about computer systems during a
pandemic," he said, "and we should have systems that if there
are emergency situations, should not make the emergencies
worse."
[...]
JK
FIDOGAZETTE Vol 14 No 14 Page 3 April 08, 2020
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