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Get ready for a data dump of 40 year old COBOL code /s But in all seriousness, this is a great step forward in institutional software. Open up software to furt

Get ready for a data dump of 40 year old COBOL code /s But in all seriousness, this is a great step forward in institutional software. Open up software to further progress towards standardizing an industry's software interface.

gt_ 9y ago
I would much prefer a bank using that over, say, Python
- dom0 9y ago
  https://github.com/symphonyoss/plexus-interop https://github.com/symphonyoss/plexus-interop Java/JS/C#
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skissane 9y ago
I would love for a few banks to dump all their old COBOL code on to GitHub. Not because it would necessarily be useful for anything, but simply because it would be fascinating to read... There is actually very little open source COBOL code available, of the massive quantities of COBOL code written over the decades the vast, vast majority of it remains closed source. Sadly I think a lot of it is just going to be lost to history... at an old employer of mine, I remember we had a store room full of old 9 track mainframe backup tapes – the mainframe had been retired and we no longer had a 9 track tape drive to read them with – I wonder if they are still there now – ideally they'd be sent to some sort of archive – they couldn't be released now without vetting because they would have contained confidential information (e.g. employee payroll information, customer data), but a century from now when all of us are dead who cares if our confidential info gets released to the public then?
- bastijn 9y ago
  > "but a century from now when all of us are dead who cares if our confidential info gets released to the public then?" Your descendants probably. Especially if grandpa earned a lot of dough which by heritage would be theirs now. Or just for the sake of privacy. Would you care if your private social network data was dumped after your death? To me, when I sign up for confidential that means now and always. Not until death do us part.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - skissane 9y ago
    > Your descendants probably. Go back three or four generations, and most people can't even remember any of their ancestors names. Why should I care about the privacy of people who died long before I was born, and whose names I can't even remember? > To me, when I sign up for confidential that means now and always. Not until death do us part. I guess it is a matter of personal preference. But why should I care about what happens to my personal info long after I am dead? Once I am dead, and my children are dead, and their children too, and nobody alive can even remember who I was–what difference does it make to me then? (Maybe 100 years is too short, since a century from now I might still have living grandchildren – but I think the principle is sound whatever the exact timeframe should be.)
    - gervase 9y ago
      Although I agree with you in general, to play the devil's advocate, it's also possible that the current state of affairs is a side effect of the state of record keeping over the past couple hundred years. Given modern data storage paradigms, with perfect[0] recording of a wide range of data, it's entirely possible that people might care in the future. For example, if you have an ancestor who was near-sighted, you are automatically disqualified from any colonization missions (regardless of your own eyesight) due to the presence of potentially-flawed genes. It would be similar in concept, if not degree, to the Nuremburg Laws[1], which were only made possible by the meticulous record-keeping of the pre-WW2 German bureaucracy. Whether or not those records are used for malicious, distasteful, or nefarious purposes at some indeterminate future is not something we can control or predict effectively today. [0]: Reduced human error [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Classifications_under_the_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Classifications...
paulie_a 9y ago
I would actually appreciate that. I recently dealt with a DDF file that was 780 columns of tabular data.
logn 9y ago
I bet it's Java.
cm2187 9y ago
Looking at the code I cannot find any finance related code (searching for the terms bond, swap, future). So it must be a communication protocol only but doesn't cover the products. Why not using a simple REST API then?
- Moru 9y ago
  There are a big likelihood that they used german terms since it's a german bank. Sourcecode written in other languages are not funny to read.
  - cm2187 9y ago
    I very much doubt so. Most of the IB, even at Deutsche Bank, doesn't speak German. And from what I can tell it seems to be in English.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      I tend to find source code comments written in German quite often.
giancarlostoro 9y ago
More like a lot of Java code based on knowing someone whose worked for DB at least at City of London anyway. I think most banks are doing JVM nowadays if I'm not mistaken.

gt_ 9y ago

I would much prefer a bank using that over, say, Python

dom0 9y ago
https://github.com/symphonyoss/plexus-interop https://github.com/symphonyoss/plexus-interop Java/JS/C#
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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skissane 9y ago

I would love for a few banks to dump all their old COBOL code on to GitHub. Not because it would necessarily be useful for anything, but simply because it would be fascinating to read... There is actually very little open source COBOL code available, of the massive quantities of COBOL code written over the decades the vast, vast majority of it remains closed source. Sadly I think a lot of it is just going to be lost to history... at an old employer of mine, I remember we had a store room full of old 9 track mainframe backup tapes – the mainframe had been retired and we no longer had a 9 track tape drive to read them with – I wonder if they are still there now – ideally they'd be sent to some sort of archive – they couldn't be released now without vetting because they would have contained confidential information (e.g. employee payroll information, customer data), but a century from now when all of us are dead who cares if our confidential info gets released to the public then?

bastijn 9y ago
> "but a century from now when all of us are dead who cares if our confidential info gets released to the public then?" Your descendants probably. Especially if grandpa earned a lot of dough which by heritage would be theirs now. Or just for the sake of privacy. Would you care if your private social network data was dumped after your death? To me, when I sign up for confidential that means now and always. Not until death do us part.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- skissane 9y ago
  > Your descendants probably. Go back three or four generations, and most people can't even remember any of their ancestors names. Why should I care about the privacy of people who died long before I was born, and whose names I can't even remember? > To me, when I sign up for confidential that means now and always. Not until death do us part. I guess it is a matter of personal preference. But why should I care about what happens to my personal info long after I am dead? Once I am dead, and my children are dead, and their children too, and nobody alive can even remember who I was–what difference does it make to me then? (Maybe 100 years is too short, since a century from now I might still have living grandchildren – but I think the principle is sound whatever the exact timeframe should be.)
  - gervase 9y ago
    Although I agree with you in general, to play the devil's advocate, it's also possible that the current state of affairs is a side effect of the state of record keeping over the past couple hundred years. Given modern data storage paradigms, with perfect[0] recording of a wide range of data, it's entirely possible that people might care in the future. For example, if you have an ancestor who was near-sighted, you are automatically disqualified from any colonization missions (regardless of your own eyesight) due to the presence of potentially-flawed genes. It would be similar in concept, if not degree, to the Nuremburg Laws[1], which were only made possible by the meticulous record-keeping of the pre-WW2 German bureaucracy. Whether or not those records are used for malicious, distasteful, or nefarious purposes at some indeterminate future is not something we can control or predict effectively today. [0]: Reduced human error [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Classifications_under_the_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Classifications...

paulie_a 9y ago

I would actually appreciate that. I recently dealt with a DDF file that was 780 columns of tabular data.

logn 9y ago

I bet it's Java.

cm2187 9y ago

Looking at the code I cannot find any finance related code (searching for the terms bond, swap, future). So it must be a communication protocol only but doesn't cover the products. Why not using a simple REST API then?

Moru 9y ago
There are a big likelihood that they used german terms since it's a german bank. Sourcecode written in other languages are not funny to read.
- cm2187 9y ago
  I very much doubt so. Most of the IB, even at Deutsche Bank, doesn't speak German. And from what I can tell it seems to be in English.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    I tend to find source code comments written in German quite often.

giancarlostoro 9y ago

More like a lot of Java code based on knowing someone whose worked for DB at least at City of London anyway. I think most banks are doing JVM nowadays if I'm not mistaken.