US CIO/CTO: Idea of Hiring COBOL Coders Laughable

theodp writes "If you're a COBOL programmer, you're apparently persona non grata in the eyes of the nation's Chief Information and Chief Technology Officers. Discussing new government technology initiatives at the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference, Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel quipped, 'I'm recruiting COBOL developers, any out there?,' sending Federal CTO Todd Park into fits of laughter (video). Lest anyone think he was serious about hiring the old fogies, VanRoekel added: 'Trust me, we still have it in the Federal government, which is quite, quite scary.' So what are VanRoekel and Park looking for? 'Bad a** innovators — the baddest a** of the bad a**es out there,' Park explained (video), 'to design, create, and kick a** for America.' Within 24 hours of VanRoekel's and Park's announcement, 600 people had applied to be Presidential Innovation Fellows."

Comments

a**?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean ass. No need for silly regular expressions.

Re:a**?

[isopropanol]

No, not ass, but nothing or any number of a's

Re:a**?

[toriver]

Or maybe a double pointer of (cryptic) type a? These programming languages are weird.

Re:a**?

[smellotron]

Or maybe a double pointer of (cryptic) type a?

No, it's clearly an extension of the postfix increment operator. The expression a** returns the current value of a and as a side effect executes a *= 1. Because it requires a copy, in most cases you should use **a instead.

Re:Pfffffttttttttt

[Johann Lau]

"to design, create, and kick a** for America"

As George Carlin knew, that's actually code for bending over and taking the whole thing without lube, then mumbling "thank you" while whipping out your wallet.