Inheritance
-
Impressive to work that long on something and not change the code at all. The mom('s team) was either very competent at writing configurable code or very good at pretending to work.
With such a codebase, once it is settled to a certain point, you stop adding things. You write new things, and carefully interface with the old stuff.
Imagine a bank. Their software core is usually neolithic, i.e. written in COBOL or even worse, FORTRAN. You don't add the "online banking" or "web client" interface in the original language. You add them in something more contemporary, which interfaces to the neolithic core via files, pipes, libraries, whatever, and translate it into a frontend as needed. As long as the core works, nobody needs to touch it.
-
With such a codebase, once it is settled to a certain point, you stop adding things. You write new things, and carefully interface with the old stuff.
Imagine a bank. Their software core is usually neolithic, i.e. written in COBOL or even worse, FORTRAN. You don't add the "online banking" or "web client" interface in the original language. You add them in something more contemporary, which interfaces to the neolithic core via files, pipes, libraries, whatever, and translate it into a frontend as needed. As long as the core works, nobody needs to touch it.
You don't add the "online banking" or "web client" interface in [FORTRAN]
Don't kink shame.
-
I didn’t think COBOL had inheritance.
Carlos!
-
You don't add the "online banking" or "web client" interface in [FORTRAN]
Don't kink shame.
My first network stack was written in assembly for a Motorola 68k. It was hot.
-
You don't add the "online banking" or "web client" interface in [FORTRAN]
Don't kink shame.
The extreme masochists begin to back slowly away in alarm.
-
Tangential, but I'm working with some code that started out in the punch card era (I'm doing particle physics, it's in fortran)
haha me too.
although it was ported to fortran 4, 77 and 2003 respectively.
still the logic remained in its core.But i must admit. working on such organic grown is harder then doing yourself.
comments was devils work at that time.
variables shortened to 3 chars for memory sake.
really a pain in the ass. -
This post did not contain any content.
Had a friend who father was a FORTRAN programmer and teach him since he was a child. At 17, he was already working on a oil company making bank. He was obsessed with synthesizers and everytime you went to his house he showed you the new ones he bought. At 25 he "retired" with his own house and a fully equipped recording studio and nowadays it's a music producer doing some consulting to pay the bills.
-
This post did not contain any content.
cobol's mom has got it going on
-
I didn’t think COBOL had inheritance.
For some reason, COBOL has had OOP features since 2002.
-
This post did not contain any content.
I remember reading a fascinating article (or Reddit post, at the time when those were sometimes awesome) from this guy interviewing his mom, a COBOL programmer... Wondering if it's related...
Update: found it but it was deleted
Update: found it on the waybackmachine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160719020302/https://medium.com/@Svenskunganka/interviewing-my-mother-a-mainframe-cobol-programmer-c693d40d88f7#.kiw240b6p -
This post did not contain any content.
I’m sitting here looking at C files that have existed for well over a decade, and this thread makes me feel like I’m living in luxury and only one notch below vibe coding.
-
I remember reading a fascinating article (or Reddit post, at the time when those were sometimes awesome) from this guy interviewing his mom, a COBOL programmer... Wondering if it's related...
Update: found it but it was deleted
Update: found it on the waybackmachine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160719020302/https://medium.com/@Svenskunganka/interviewing-my-mother-a-mainframe-cobol-programmer-c693d40d88f7#.kiw240b6pGreat read, thanks for that!
-
I’m sitting here looking at C files that have existed for well over a decade, and this thread makes me feel like I’m living in luxury and only one notch below vibe coding.
I've worked with C code from the late 70s... that was cool.
-
This post did not contain any content.
COBOL is still on my to learn list.
-
I remember reading a fascinating article (or Reddit post, at the time when those were sometimes awesome) from this guy interviewing his mom, a COBOL programmer... Wondering if it's related...
Update: found it but it was deleted
Update: found it on the waybackmachine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160719020302/https://medium.com/@Svenskunganka/interviewing-my-mother-a-mainframe-cobol-programmer-c693d40d88f7#.kiw240b6pThe smaller banks however are better off which usually runs something like Java without mainframes.
I'm not so sure about that...
-
I’m sitting here looking at C files that have existed for well over a decade, and this thread makes me feel like I’m living in luxury and only one notch below vibe coding.
I've got Java code older than a decade I have to deal with too...
-
COBOL is still on my to learn list.
I can't recall if it was COBOL or FORTRAN, but I tried learning one of them after being pretty confident in picking up any other programming language I've tried to learn, including assembly (wouldn't want to use that for large projects but I've written context switches and such), but I ended up giving up because it felt like the learning materials themselves were in some other language.
Which sucked because I'm the kind of guy that thinks a task like refactoring millions of lines of legacy code into a more modern language would be fun (or satisfying at least). Phase 1 would be a 1:1 conversion (probably involving implementing various old language features in the new language or assembly to do it piece by piece), followed by phase 2 which would be a full redesign and rewrite, using the knowledge from phase 1 to ensue full feature parity. Because "we rewrote software but the new version doesn't do x, y, z that the old one did" sucks. Glances at Blizzard.
-
I can't recall if it was COBOL or FORTRAN, but I tried learning one of them after being pretty confident in picking up any other programming language I've tried to learn, including assembly (wouldn't want to use that for large projects but I've written context switches and such), but I ended up giving up because it felt like the learning materials themselves were in some other language.
Which sucked because I'm the kind of guy that thinks a task like refactoring millions of lines of legacy code into a more modern language would be fun (or satisfying at least). Phase 1 would be a 1:1 conversion (probably involving implementing various old language features in the new language or assembly to do it piece by piece), followed by phase 2 which would be a full redesign and rewrite, using the knowledge from phase 1 to ensue full feature parity. Because "we rewrote software but the new version doesn't do x, y, z that the old one did" sucks. Glances at Blizzard.
FORTRAN is godawful, I can only image what COBOL is like. They're my counter to the people think languages essentially don't matter. No guys, there has been progress over the eras.
-
This post did not contain any content.
When “What idiot wrote this?” is replaced by “I should call my mom.”
-
This post did not contain any content.
COBOL isn't hard to read, it's just hard to understand why someone made that decision. Context is key.
