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This. Suppose you want to rewrite. Your task is to create a new, cleanly written program in a new language that produces the same output as the old, slightly
by dzdt 9y ago
This. Suppose you want to rewrite. Your task is to create a new, cleanly written program in a new language that produces the same output as the old, slightly messy COBOL.
It must work identically for all appropriate inputs. There is no documemtation of the code and insufficient documentation of what combinations of inputs must be supported. No one understands the business logic fully. And there are 500,000 lines of copy-paste-modified code to convert. Any screw-up will likely cost more than your annual salary. How do you sell the risk-vs-reward of the rewrite project?
COBOL will outlive us all.
- cm2187 9y agoWhere I work I heard the IT dept literally had to pull developers from retirement to make a change to the payment systems. Sadly pulling people from retirement is an option that the company will not have forever. At one point there will be no other choice but a complete rewrite.
- overcast 9y agoListen, you make Cobol programming highly lucrative, and there will be plenty of people coming to do it.
- 52-6F-62 9y agoThis happened to my grandmother even in the early 90's because of her knowledge and experience with COBOL and Fortran. Also because she knew the software. This was for Shell Oil, I think.
- fork1 9y agoI work on cobol migrations (or anything mainframe more correctly) to x86. I've never seen a rewrite of a real application that actually worked. Some have tried but ended up throwing the towel. We've taken a different approach, by being binary compatible. Basically we rewrote a CICS/IMS/etc, as well as some z/OS layers. Depending on the clients, some want to stay in cobol, but others want to modernize, but in a controlled and progressive way. A complete rewrite is out of the question, but you can try to do it in steps.