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The Pentagon's Seven Million Lines of Cobol

Posted by Soulskill on from the lords-of-cobol-hear-my-prayers dept.

MrMetlHed writes "A portion of this Reuters article about the Pentagon's inability to manage paying soldiers properly mentions that their payroll program has 'seven million lines of Cobol code that hasn't been updated.' It goes on to mention that the documentation has been lost, and no one really knows how to update it well. In trying to replace the program, the Pentagon spent a billion dollars and wasn't successful."

5 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. Cobol is self-documenting by mveloso · · Score: 5, Funny

    But - but - cobol is supposed to be self-documenting!

    1. Re:Cobol is self-documenting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      But - but - cobol is supposed to be self-documenting!

      TL;DR

    2. Re:COBOL is self-documenting by ebno-10db · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, but every line is documented the same way, "don't touch this because I don't know what it does but sometimes it works".

    3. Re:Cobol is self-documenting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Seven million lines of COBOL might only be a short sorting routine.

  2. Can't read the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I tried to read the article, but it was written in English - a decades-old language.