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First things the vast majority of users (virtually all) when they see an old ugly GUI is to hit the back button. Decent SPAs don’t take 15 seconds to load and

First things the vast majority of users (virtually all) when they see an old ugly GUI is to hit the back button. Decent SPAs don’t take 15 seconds to load and they don’t break the back button. Stop spreading FUD. It’s like the HN myth of how there’s supposedly all these old devs writing COBOL for the government and in reality the government can’t find any developers to maintain their ancient apps

SamuelAdams 6y ago
> It’s like the HN myth of how there’s supposedly all these old devs writing COBOL for the government and in reality the government can’t find any developers to maintain their ancient apps Exactly. I worked at a private, multi-billion dollar organization a few years ago. There were plenty of "old devs" working on their COBOL software, but they also got paid more than 6 figures to do so. And they hired recent grads to work on those same systems. New grads typically started around 60k, more if you negotiated better. Whereas these gov't jobs only pay around 35k - 75k for the same work. For someone with years of experience.
p_l 6y ago
The kind of users that are going to use the mainframe are not going to hit the back button. Also, in mainframe-using orgs, there's often this weird idea of giving people training. Sometimes it's over a month of training where you have to sign a loyalty contract that you're going to work at least X months or repay them before you're allowed to take job with competition.
flukus 6y ago
> First things the vast majority of users (virtually all) when they see an old ugly GUI is to hit the back button. These aren't public facing apps you have to entice people to use, it's part of their job, if someone hits the back button and refuses to use it they're fired. Modern user friendly versions typically have half the functionality and take longer to do anything, they're universally reviled by people that took the time to learn the old green screen versions. > Decent SPAs don’t take 15 seconds to load and they don’t break the back button. Stop spreading FUD. Decent SPA's are few and far between, they take extra work to get this functionality that was free before SPA's.

SamuelAdams 6y ago

> It’s like the HN myth of how there’s supposedly all these old devs writing COBOL for the government and in reality the government can’t find any developers to maintain their ancient apps Exactly. I worked at a private, multi-billion dollar organization a few years ago. There were plenty of "old devs" working on their COBOL software, but they also got paid more than 6 figures to do so. And they hired recent grads to work on those same systems. New grads typically started around 60k, more if you negotiated better. Whereas these gov't jobs only pay around 35k - 75k for the same work. For someone with years of experience.

p_l 6y ago

The kind of users that are going to use the mainframe are not going to hit the back button. Also, in mainframe-using orgs, there's often this weird idea of giving people training. Sometimes it's over a month of training where you have to sign a loyalty contract that you're going to work at least X months or repay them before you're allowed to take job with competition.

flukus 6y ago

> First things the vast majority of users (virtually all) when they see an old ugly GUI is to hit the back button. These aren't public facing apps you have to entice people to use, it's part of their job, if someone hits the back button and refuses to use it they're fired. Modern user friendly versions typically have half the functionality and take longer to do anything, they're universally reviled by people that took the time to learn the old green screen versions. > Decent SPAs don’t take 15 seconds to load and they don’t break the back button. Stop spreading FUD. Decent SPA's are few and far between, they take extra work to get this functionality that was free before SPA's.