So, most old banks use COBOL for their core services, with approximately 200 billion lines of Cobol out there...

So, most old banks use COBOL for their core services, with approximately 200 billion lines of Cobol out there, typically in the form of monolithic programs that can not be ported gradually.

The average age of a currently active cobol programmer is ~55-60 years. The average programmer younger than 35 has not heard of cobol at all.


Banks are afraid to do a full rewrite because they are afraid that a slight change in specifications could lead to a failure to provide services. But the people that really know how the system works are already retired in many places, and in ten years most people that knew the people who knew how the system works will have retired.

Are we in for a banking crisis over the next decade? Should I shop around for a new bank, making sure that I pick a bank which does not rely on Cobol? The fact that banks primary services will effectively go unmaintained soon is scary.

>implying people won't learn COBOL for those sweet legacy shekels

Learn COBOL and you will be stuck in banks for the rest of your life. Simply putting, a lifeless outdated cog that has to follow retarded politics because someone wants to get promoted

>stuck in banks for the rest of your life
The horror! A guaranteed job, surrounded by money, in one of the safest commercial buildings possible. Who would want that, eh?

Should companies consider running cobol in node?

IonicaBizau/node-cobol

this post was definitely written by someone who knows what they're talking about, and not some dreaming kid living in a fantasy world

Oy, vey don't even think about stealing muh shekels.

Yea, being treated like shit because everybody in there wants to be "the boss". They pay more to compensate the life that you live in there

>trusting JavaScript to do the right thing with numbers, ever

Why should I trust a critical infrastructure which is dependent on a specialization which is no longer being taught?

If I'm going to let a bank store my money, I need to be sure that if something goes wrong, they can always figure out who they owe money to.

>Not using for that
>2017

Imagine being the only maintainer of a program which runs all the accounts of a large bank. The program is so Rube-Goldbergish that it takes substantial effort to know what any bit of code actually does.

You could get really, really rich with very little accountability if you abused your power here.

Macron was elected president though, so the opportunities for promotion are obviously great.

I don't think so.
I live in a small city in a third world shithole and used to work at a small regional state owned bank. And even there they had already replaced their old Cobol systems in every vital service.

who cares if you get paid for it. programming is the easiest and highest paid job there is. you just sit at a computer and press keys. much better than doing hard work outside and getting paid maybe $1000/month.

Fuck your office politics, etc. For the salary and security of a COBOL programmer I'd let my 21 year old boss ride me around the office like a camel during my lunch break.

REEEE

DILBERT MAN IS A RACIST TRUMP SUPPORTER

What's the problem? Just put it in the Docker.

>You could get really, really rich with very little accountability
Or you could end up hauled into a forest in a trunk if anything goes wrong

*truck
your welcome

This is starting to sound like Office Space

(You)

This is why you stop living anywhere you can be found easily after the heist.
Then you get a nose job and grow yourself a full beard.

>was about to type up a shitpost denial
>remember that yesterday I was rounding off the communications from my machine to another
>a couple vague problems no one could really describe when running
>we figured the easiest solution was to install a webcam on location for me to examine and follow
>tfw I spent four hours with my feet up, drinking coffee and making small tweaks while watching a 50 ton death machine 2,000 miles away run an entire factory
>tfw I was paid a stupid amount for this just because I was a horrible child and decided I like thinking like a computer instead of a person

banks are getting ready for blockchain to replace the legacy banking systems

I think you mean shave your full beard.

That infrastructure has been working flawlessly for decades, what could go wrong?

Let's say someone discovers an escalation of privilege attack that works against your system that you were unaware of. How do you patch it?

Tell them to check their privilege

Daily reminder that despite every bank and major consulting firm opening research labs for the blockchain, there have been ZERO (0) useful things created using it so far.

It has obvious potential, but no one can get their shit together enough to use it properly

ACUCOBOL-GT, COBOL-IT, COBOL/2, DEC COBOL-10, DEC VAX COBOL, DOSVS COBOL, Fujitsu COBOL, Hitachi COBOL2002, HP3000 COBOL/II, IBM COBOL SAA, IBM COBOL/400, IBM COBOL/II, IBM Enterprise COBOL, IBM ILE COBOL, IBM OS/VS COBOL, ICL COBOL, isCOBOL, Micro Focus COBOL, Microsoft COBOL, Realia COBOL, Ryan McFarland RM/COBOL, Ryan McFarland RM/COBOL-85, Tandem (NonStop) COBOL85, Tandem (NonStop) SCOBOL, UNIVAC COBOL, Unisys MCP COBOL74, Unisys MCP COBOL85, Unix COBOL X/Open, Visual COBOL, Wang VS COBOL

which do i learn?

>banks can't figure out how to take control of a system that was designed so banks couldn't take control of it
yeah it works as intended

all

I am considering learning cobol. The only problem is that most positions would want you to have 20 years experience in it.

Tho I guess you could just lie about that.

Oh deer god why

At a previous workplace where they flew in several pajeet consultants from India they had COBOL on their resume. Guess they are preparing for future job opportunities.

Daily reminder that it already exists in a world wide traded currency. B, why do you think it keeps going up?

yeah im sure they wont train new cobol programmers, those dumb bankers haven't thought of it, unlike you, the savvy Sup Forums poster

Core banking systems cost millions. Instead of supporting CobolBankSuite with HorribleTerminalUI frontend and AncientCobwebDB backend, write a new one using modern methods or learn one of the newer ones that already exist. Banks can and do switch core systems (I worked for one, we did it). Yes its hard and expensive but its also highly beneficial.

If you make one (much harder than it sounds), it'll be worth hundreds of millions.

I don't know why everyone hates COBOL. It's super comfy.

t. currently employed as a COBOL programmer

cobol has one of the most disgusting sintaxes of all programming languages

>write a new one using modern methods or learn one of the newer ones that already exist.
I have a friend that was a project manager in a bank in charge of doing just that. They spent 10 years trying to get away from IBM by rewriting their ancient solution. In the end the project was deemed a failure due to poor performance and other issues. They kept using their ancient solution.

>typically in the form of monolithic programs that can not be ported gradually.
This is almost always false, for anyone skilled at doing things gradually.

>The average programmer younger than 35 has not heard of cobol at all.
Oh, come now. They may not have ever used it or know what it looks like, but surely they have heard of it.

>Banks are afraid to do a full rewrite because they are afraid that a slight change in specifications could lead to a failure to provide services. But the people that really know how the system works are already retired in many places, and in ten years most people that knew the people who knew how the system works will have retired.
All true -- but that is a problem of the program design, not the programming language. All programs in all languages slowly become a monolithic monster if you do not take active measures to avoid this fate. Conversely, learning cobol is not the challenge for anyone wanting to maintain these old monsters; that is something that can be done in a couple of afternoons. It's learning the peculiarities of the monster program that is the challenge in bringing new people onboard. That would not be even slightly different if the monstrosity were a java program instead.

But what if you are a brainlet

So you're saying I should learn COBOL? I heard it was a neckbeard language. I'm already great with C and I'm learning FASM. How hard would it be for me to learn COBOL?

This made me physically ill.

You patch it as soon as you become aware of it. Is this not how security holes in software have always been fixed?

>I'm already great with C
read: I know how to use a for loop and a circular buffer

I'm not sure if you realize that everything comes full circle. All of that NoSQL and high availability bullshit you've been hearing about is what IBM has been doing with IMS and their mainframe systems since the 1950s.

COBOL, MVS, IMS, DB2, etc. are not as miserably out of date as academics (who never supported the technologies in the first place) and hipsters (who barely know what they actually are) would like you to believe.

Their shit isn't about to go unmaintained, you retard. Why would anybody consider abandoning near-bulletproof software when there's always people teaching themselves the Old Techniques so they can reap those sweet legacy shekalim?

our financial core was written in Ada with smatterings of C, the parts that do the actual transactions that is, the web UI they shoehorned on top of it was Java.

They never rewrite, that thing in a hideous inbred monster.

Anybody can recommend a place to learn cobol and get a cert? Tried googling it didn't get a clear answer.

I don't think most of the COBOL code is accessible from the "outside" to begin with to cause something like that to happen.

its actually not that people are afraid, it costs a shit ton to plan and implement while technology doesn't stop evolving. sure shit can go wrong, but that happens every day, you just don't know it. i work in for a bank

every decent CS/IT education teaches you about programming languages, which impact they had, and cobol is one because it is still relevant to this day.

java is the new cobol

retard comment of the year. also docker is not officially pci dss compliant