sgtstretch
sgtstretch

It’s a great time for the internet. Not so great for the banks that are stuck on 1998 technology.

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odd
odd

@sgtstretch I still wish there were classes and a “drivers license” exam one had to take to be allowed to get on the internet.

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Ddanielson
Ddanielson

@sgtstretch The bank I worked for in 1998 was on 1968 technology. COBOL.

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In reply to
odd
odd

@Pilchuck A coder I know have been programming COBOL for a bank and a telco until very recently. @sgtstretch

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Archimage
Archimage

@odd First hand knowledge. Many banks still use COBOL. Upgrading “would incur unreasonable feduciary risk to customers and the bank.” In other words, they want to keep what they know works. Some agencies still use FORTRAN.

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Archimage
Archimage

@odd Also did work on telcos. COBOL exists but less so than banks.

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sgtstretch
sgtstretch

@odd @Pilchuck @Archimage I had to do some work on FoxPro database a few years ago for a small regional airport. It was crap and I was thrilled be be done with that project.

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tuckerk
tuckerk

@sgtstretch Right out of college I was hired at a place to convert their system from FoxPro, so I had to work with the only person left at the company that knew FoxPro and their whole system. Not fun!

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JohnBrady
JohnBrady

@Archimage I worked for an insurance company in the 1980s; the official programming language was PL/I, a successor to COBOL that incorporated structured programming concepts. It was pretty nice. If I remember rightly, it tried to include COBOL as a subset so that old COBOL programs could be updated in PL/I. I'd guess that both languages are relics now. I will say that they were (by design) good at handling massive databases such as you find in financial institutions. I have no idea of how more modern languages measure up.

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dwalbert
dwalbert

@Archimage Hey, I know FORTRAN! Or used to, anyway. But you know what they say, it’s like riding a velocipede… Does this mean there is still a future for me in the tech industry?

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sgtstretch
sgtstretch

@tuckerk I’m sorry, that sounds horrid. Did it make you question your choice in degrees?

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tuckerk
tuckerk

@sgtstretch Not too much. It did show me a more clear path for what I wanted to do in the future.

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