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It's not so clear that COBOL is to blame: > COBOL “remains one of the fastest programming languages,” said John Zeanchock, associate professor of computer and
by aazaa 7y ago
It's not so clear that COBOL is to blame:
> COBOL “remains one of the fastest programming languages,” said John Zeanchock, associate professor of computer and information systems at Robert Morris University. “We get calls from big companies in Pittsburgh, like Bank of New York Mellon and PNC Bank, looking for COBOL programmers. The limitations of COBOL itself are probably not the problem with New Jersey’s system,” Zeanchock said, adding that a single mainframe computer could probably handle the processing needed for an individual state’s UI unemployment insurance system, even if the number of applications increased tenfold.
https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/new-jersey-unemployment-cobol-coronavirus.html https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/new-jersey-unemployment...
The article goes on to note:
> When it comes to our broken social safety net, COBOL isn’t really the bad guy: blame Congress for underfunding the programs, and states for failing to make up the gaps.
And later:
> “We’ve known for a long time that even a much smaller crisis would lead to daunting challenges,” said Dutta-Gupta. He points out that during the Great Recession, state unemployment agencies were so understaffed that their agency heads spent shifts answering applicant phone calls. Even if states weren’t getting federal funding, they still could have paid for better technology with their own tax revenue. According to reporting by the Tampa Bay Times, former Florida Gov. Rick Scott and current Gov. Ron DeSantis ignored repeated warnings that the state’s website barely functioned.
This looks a lot less like a computer problem and more of a process and institution problem made much worse by chronic underfunding and understaffing.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago> This looks a lot less like a computer problem and more of a process and institution problem made much worse by chronic underfunding and understaffing. It’s a political issue. Some states are broke (e.g. NJ), and some are hell bent on not helping others in society so they handicap social welfare systems (e.g. FL). Real solution won’t come from a few COBOL programmers, it will have to be voters voting in people who will address the issues.
- pas 7y agoHow broke is NJ? What could they do? Why aren't they?
- lotsofpulp 7y agoExtremely broke. https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-state-of-the-states-2019 https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-stat... Other than defaulting on their debt, they can’t do any thing about it as the money was spent decades ago in the form of defined benefit pension payments in the future. If all the recipients of those future defined benefit pension payments died, then that would also lower their debt.
- pas 7y agoHm, so currently they just "service the debt", they can issue bonds and just pay out over 50+ years. I don't see why they don't plan for the long term with this. They are relatively a prosperous state. (Good GDP per capita, good income after taxes - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Median_household_income_and_taxes.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Median_h... , though life is accordingly expensive 34th overally affordability - https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/opportunity/affordability https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/opportunity... - better than Florida, Washington, NY, CA, etc. 2017 "PPP" is 112% of national average, close to NY's 115% and CA's 114%.) Though they should just ship pensioners to a cheap-to-live state, eg Florida or Pennsylvania. Okay, okay, armchair policy recommendations are always very nuanced and great (not to mention useful), especially on random internet forums! But the level of dysfunction due to braindead leadership is always surprising.
- JJMcJ 7y agoCalifornia, for example, is handling the increase in applications without many problems. On the other hand . . . In 2009 recession, I had to call about some issues with unemployment benefits. It was a harrowing process. Like many, I practically memorized the key sequence so didn't have to listen to all the voice prompts.