A blink of an eye ago, COBOL was the bombe.
Now, not so much anymore you’d say. Though many life-critical systems still rely on it. Like, core mil systems (not all that pertains to nat’l security is (still) in ADA, unfortunately), core banking, etc.
A real blink of an eye ago, I was reminded that there’s still Old People (over 25) that do code reviews on bug fixes in COBOL.
But wasn’t that problem solved a decade ago by transformation of respective systems into something more modern (if anything in IT is; once released, already replacements are on their way)..? Or was the stop gap solution of enterprise-bus’ing the whole thing to buy time, not followed up by a better back end?
No references to the best of these, being mine, please; that’s not to be touched on pain of protracted death but by a few.
Again, wouldn’t one want to use a cocktail? Of e.g., Expert Systems and a dose of ML in the mix, to do a. the above patching and testing, b. the reverse engineering, c. pacemakering the whole thing (like a couple of posts down below here); shaken, not stirred. The idea of CI/CD attaches itself to this, too, and may be expanded to elsewhere – but let’s first mvp this idea on, relatively simple since relatively highly structured, CO-Bowl.
I’ll take my meds now (as per that below pacemaker post; I haven’t any but you’ll get the drift), and leave you with:
[Mummelsee, Black Forest, but completely like e.g., Idaho, Wyoming et al. (here) including the smell, the road side tables, the atmosphere, the sounds (nature, people) as it was back in the Seventies… Ah so there’s this pic’s relevance-angle…]
