The first rule of TDI Club is that you do not speak of TDI Club.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
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Fire Your IT Boss
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If the manager is not technical, he/she/it may not be able to see who is producing what output. And the excellent programmer will likely be able to produce the same or better results in fewer lines of more maintainable code in less time, with fewer issues where the new code broke something else. And it will likely fit the future direction of the code better. If you cant read the code, how would one know which is which?
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
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· Score: 1
"I think having the manager understand the technical nature of whats going on is certainly an asset.. but ultimately I don't know if it's a necessity."
I was once in a position where there were two factions advising the semi-technical boss on how things should go, and at two levels at the same time ( new boss for me, new VP above him ).
Things did not work out well in that instance, as the bosses did not know who to believe and trust, and they both ( IMHO ) ended up listening to the wrong faction, as they did not have the "chops" to tell who was interested in resume padding, and who was trying to get product out the door. We ended up osborning a released working product over the new! improved! version ( which had fewer features, and was not as stable ). They ended up dying. So, no, in my experience the ability to tell wheat from chaff can be pretty darned important.
Interesting... This crystallizes ( for me, anyway ) one of my objections to outsourcing. It is kinda like prisoners dilemma, the other side is playing "betray", only America keeps playing "silent", regardless. I guess because the American "deciders" are getting something from the "betrayer" decision, and they dont care that the body ( America ) is at risk of "prison", as the "deciders" will be able to leak out of the cell, and continue to be well off.
"Secondly, I don't see how tax payers can possibly solve the problem of "mentally ill people who are incapable of joining society", which is, as far as I can tell, the majority of the homeless problem. I guess we can use our tax money to move them all to another city? Or what did you have in mind, exactly?"
Funding a building/campus and staff such that they are off the streets and cared for?
"Is there a place in your mom private diary where something is mentioned about the right to privacy?"
You make your point crudely. But looking past the offensive wording, yes, the constitution is not divine law enforced by a living and present deity. That aside, the constitution *is* a founding document that the US's legal system ( with similar abilities to call it's relevance into question ) looks to in making decisions. So, unless you calling for revolution, and have an ability to enact such, I think the relevance of the constitution for American's should be oblivious.
"As far as I know, the founding father did not own the US, they had no authority in imposing their jurisdiction on the existing landowners."
How is "ownership" relevant? And just what is "ownership"? Who "owns" a nation? And what is "authority"? With the ratification of the document, wasn't "authority" granted? I think *that* makes it a bit more than just "bunch of people".
"The constitution does not define right and wrong."
Not entirely, but it does define what government is not supposed to do.
"On rare occasions it does limit the criminal activities of the government, so its sometimes useful"
I think the fault lies more in the citizens ( not doing a better job of educating themselves in the doings of govt ) and the politicians ( in seeking to limit how well people can see what individual and collective politicians are doing on their behalf ). I think the document is a pretty good guide that is not being utilized nearly as well as it could be. Could a better one be written? Sure.
", but overall it does far more harm by giving the dangerous illusion that the government is somehow legitimate"
Anarchist? What makes a government legitimate or illegitimate? The people governed? Or is it always illegitimate? What would that look like?
"I can't find enough info on the web to understand how he doesn't know the term. He does know about Datafiles. Maybe he's confused, its been 26 years since he's done anything with it."
In another post in thsi thread, it was pointed out to me that there were other DB's that COBOL worked with. Maybe he used one of them. Maybe he plain didnt use one.
"I don't think its a coincidence that most languages in use today use similar conventions to FORTRAN, rather than COBOL. ie
ADD 1 TO MYNUMBER GIVING NEWNUMBER versus INEWNUMBER = INUMBER +1"
Quite. COBOL's desigers did hedge their bets on this with the "Compute" keyword, which allowed the second form.
"Everyone has always said that the designers wanted COBOL to be readable so non technical personnel could audit source code"
I think it went further than that, I think they wanted non-technical types to "be" the programmers. Then the Subject Matter experts could do the system themselves, without the translating layer.
"You sound like you actually know something about COBOL."
I took some community college courses on my own, before I got serious about completing my degree, and I ran out of other computer courses to take, so I took the COBOL course set.
"May I ask a question?"
Yes. "I can think of a whole lot of things to dislike about COBOL"
So can I.:-)
"but readability isn't one of them"
True, to a point. I dont think they had gotten the "accidental/essential" complexity thing down yet, and thought that English would make things easy. So, yes, it can be very readable. And you could not do a lot with the language, so it was very easy to follow.
"or even cryptic C, C++, or Java (there's another kind?)."
APL?:-)
"How hard can it be for a reasonably intelligent team to plow through the code, find the section(s) that do the payroll calculations, force fit the results to $6.55 an hour, print a check and write a journal file so that the state can spend the next six months frantically trying to fix their applications in order to have the right numbers for W-2s in January?
I have no real idea, but I think as you do ( I think ), that it would not be any harder ( and probably a touch easier ) to do in COBOL as in any other language. I think that any real technical issue would come down to the design of the system they have in place, and perhaps that they are thinking of some one off update app to move the rates in the DB that they intend to write from scratch ( depending on the DB, there may be no query tool to do ad hoc stuff with ). I certainly hope the rate info is not hard coded, I would think inflation adjustments would have driven such things out of their system a while ago.
"Messy? you bet. But if lives depended on the outcome, I'll bet that mostly correct paychecks could be in the mail within a week or two."
I agree. It is probably a symptom of the reluctance of someone to do this that we are seeing here, really.
I took a COBOL course in community college as well, and we did the sentinel thing as well. But our prof did a better job of teaching us that Y2K would be a problem, and that we should keep that in mind and not assume so much about how long it would be in service. Of course, he was ( along with most of the other profs there ) gainfully employed in the field he was teaching.
I recall at least one time when the "Redefines" concept helped me with a problem. And a technique the above prof taught us ( parsing address data from the end of the string, rather than the beginning ) proved helpful in another instance. And it was helpful in C++ code.
He is a COBOL programmer and doesn't know what a database is? *That* does not compute at all. ISAM databases were the one thing that COBOL was all about.
As to the design of COBOL, I am not sure where to begin. Just how would you extend Fortran? And where does a knowledge of math come into it?
Further, the real problem is likely the system design, and not so much the implementation language. That or political shenanigans.
"really does nothing for national security anyway because there is nothing that prevents someone from getting "cleared", then carrying out a crime later"
That was my first thought on seeing that such a program was in place. Heck, if someone wanted to cause problems with a plane, this is the program for them.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoever is elect-rocuted....
I am boiling some water now!
Keep torquing about it, you might torque yourself into an early grave. He he ha.
The first rule of TDI Club is that you do not speak of TDI Club.
If the manager is not technical, he/she/it may not be able to see who is producing what output. And the excellent programmer will likely be able to produce the same or better results in fewer lines of more maintainable code in less time, with fewer issues where the new code broke something else. And it will likely fit the future direction of the code better. If you cant read the code, how would one know which is which?
"I think having the manager understand the technical nature of whats going on is certainly an asset.. but ultimately I don't know if it's a necessity."
I was once in a position where there were two factions advising the semi-technical boss on how things should go, and at two levels at the same time ( new boss for me, new VP above him ).
Things did not work out well in that instance, as the bosses did not know who to believe and trust, and they both ( IMHO ) ended up listening to the wrong faction, as they did not have the "chops" to tell who was interested in resume padding, and who was trying to get product out the door. We ended up osborning a released working product over the new! improved! version ( which had fewer features, and was not as stable ). They ended up dying. So, no, in my experience the ability to tell wheat from chaff can be pretty darned important.
Apple should not blame Vista, but really, an application crashed the OS. That is a fault in the OS.
Buy /., get the code, add "Terrorist" to the list of moderation options, push new version to production servers.
No, it is a Star Trek (TOS ) reference. When Spock holds a piece of a bed frame to make a laser or some such.
"MBA's will not need programmers anymore, so we'll be able to code OSS full time!"
You realize that is what they said when they introduced COBOL, right?
"It practices economic nationalism."
Interesting... This crystallizes ( for me, anyway ) one of my objections to outsourcing. It is kinda like prisoners dilemma, the other side is playing "betray", only America keeps playing "silent", regardless. I guess because the American "deciders" are getting something from the "betrayer" decision, and they dont care that the body ( America ) is at risk of "prison", as the "deciders" will be able to leak out of the cell, and continue to be well off.
I just hope Asimov was right.
"Secondly, I don't see how tax payers can possibly solve the problem of "mentally ill people who are incapable of joining society", which is, as far as I can tell, the majority of the homeless problem. I guess we can use our tax money to move them all to another city? Or what did you have in mind, exactly?"
Funding a building/campus and staff such that they are off the streets and cared for?
"WTF, do you have a clue what 'slavery' is?"
When someone has a choice between dying/pain/harm and performing work for someone else in exchange for basic subsistence?
You are missing the point: W is the perfect soldier of the future.
Fair enough, but so?
The constitution is the human invention used in founding America. Should it be discarded? Why? And replaced with what? And why?
"Is there a place in your mom private diary where something is mentioned about the right to privacy?"
You make your point crudely. But looking past the offensive wording, yes, the constitution is not divine law enforced by a living and present deity. That aside, the constitution *is* a founding document that the US's legal system ( with similar abilities to call it's relevance into question ) looks to in making decisions. So, unless you calling for revolution, and have an ability to enact such, I think the relevance of the constitution for American's should be oblivious.
"As far as I know, the founding father did not own the US, they had no authority in imposing their jurisdiction on the existing landowners."
How is "ownership" relevant? And just what is "ownership"? Who "owns" a nation? And what is "authority"? With the ratification of the document, wasn't "authority" granted? I think *that* makes it a bit more than just "bunch of people".
"The constitution does not define right and wrong."
Not entirely, but it does define what government is not supposed to do.
"On rare occasions it does limit the criminal activities of the government, so its sometimes useful"
I think the fault lies more in the citizens ( not doing a better job of educating themselves in the doings of govt ) and the politicians ( in seeking to limit how well people can see what individual and collective politicians are doing on their behalf ). I think the document is a pretty good guide that is not being utilized nearly as well as it could be. Could a better one be written? Sure.
", but overall it does far more harm by giving the dangerous illusion that the government is somehow legitimate"
Anarchist? What makes a government legitimate or illegitimate? The people governed? Or is it always illegitimate? What would that look like?
But if you drove enough, you could make that .05% *really* hurt them.
"There is no such thing as a "right" to privacy"
Is there a place in the constitution where a right to privacy is specifically mentioned as something the people do not have?
I think this was going to be Dr Suess's next book.
"I can't find enough info on the web to understand how he doesn't know the term. He does know about Datafiles. Maybe he's confused, its been 26 years since he's done anything with it."
In another post in thsi thread, it was pointed out to me that there were other DB's that COBOL worked with. Maybe he used one of them. Maybe he plain didnt use one.
"I don't think its a coincidence that most languages in use today use similar conventions to FORTRAN, rather than COBOL. ie
ADD 1 TO MYNUMBER GIVING NEWNUMBER
versus
INEWNUMBER = INUMBER +1"
Quite. COBOL's desigers did hedge their bets on this with the "Compute" keyword, which allowed the second form.
"Everyone has always said that the designers wanted COBOL to be readable so non technical personnel could audit source code"
I think it went further than that, I think they wanted non-technical types to "be" the programmers. Then the Subject Matter experts could do the system themselves, without the translating layer.
"You sound like you actually know something about COBOL."
I took some community college courses on my own, before I got serious about completing my degree, and I ran out of other computer courses to take, so I took the COBOL course set.
"May I ask a question?"
Yes.
"I can think of a whole lot of things to dislike about COBOL"
So can I. :-)
"but readability isn't one of them"
True, to a point. I dont think they had gotten the "accidental/essential" complexity thing down yet, and thought that English would make things easy. So, yes, it can be very readable. And you could not do a lot with the language, so it was very easy to follow.
"or even cryptic C, C++, or Java (there's another kind?)."
APL? :-)
"How hard can it be for a reasonably intelligent team to plow through the code, find the section(s) that do the payroll calculations, force fit the results to $6.55 an hour, print a check and write a journal file so that the state can spend the next six months frantically trying to fix their applications in order to have the right numbers for W-2s in January?
I have no real idea, but I think as you do ( I think ), that it would not be any harder ( and probably a touch easier ) to do in COBOL as in any other language. I think that any real technical issue would come down to the design of the system they have in place, and perhaps that they are thinking of some one off update app to move the rates in the DB that they intend to write from scratch ( depending on the DB, there may be no query tool to do ad hoc stuff with ). I certainly hope the rate info is not hard coded, I would think inflation adjustments would have driven such things out of their system a while ago.
"Messy? you bet. But if lives depended on the outcome, I'll bet that mostly correct paychecks could be in the mail within a week or two."
I agree. It is probably a symptom of the reluctance of someone to do this that we are seeing here, really.
ISAM ( JSAM? ) was all I ever saw, so...
But I think you reinforce my point that it is database centric.
I took a COBOL course in community college as well, and we did the sentinel thing as well. But our prof did a better job of teaching us that Y2K would be a problem, and that we should keep that in mind and not assume so much about how long it would be in service. Of course, he was ( along with most of the other profs there ) gainfully employed in the field he was teaching.
I recall at least one time when the "Redefines" concept helped me with a problem. And a technique the above prof taught us ( parsing address data from the end of the string, rather than the beginning ) proved helpful in another instance. And it was helpful in C++ code.
He is a COBOL programmer and doesn't know what a database is? *That* does not compute at all. ISAM databases were the one thing that COBOL was all about.
As to the design of COBOL, I am not sure where to begin. Just how would you extend Fortran? And where does a knowledge of math come into it?
Further, the real problem is likely the system design, and not so much the implementation language. That or political shenanigans.
"really does nothing for national security anyway because there is nothing that prevents someone from getting "cleared", then carrying out a crime later"
That was my first thought on seeing that such a program was in place. Heck, if someone wanted to cause problems with a plane, this is the program for them.