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Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently

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On Mon, 09 Nov 2015 05:37:40 -0800, Eric Douglas wrote:

> I wasn't sure how much of that COBOL code still existed or how much has
> already been rewritten.
>
If its old and complex code that has been extensively patched, which 
describes a lot of the core code in banks, it can be remarkably resistant 
to replacement simply because nobody really understands it.

Back in the day, application documentation at all levels was hand-written 
or typescript, supplemented by hand-drawn record layouts and flow-charts. 
All too often this stuff wasn't updated or got lost, so the only up to 
date documentation was the source code, which was often badly written, 
uncommented or worse. Examples:

1) At my first site, the tape library index, which the operators relied 
on didn't even have up to date source. It was assembler, had been hand-
patched in memory to make it work and the result saved to tape. Then, 
some time later, the source had been lost.   

2) I was once faced with a bought-in COBOL accounting suite in which the 
first FD was called MT01, the first record in that was called MT02, the 
first data item in the record was called MT03 and so on through two or 
three tape files, followed by CRxx for card input, TRxx for paper tape 
and LPxx for the printer.  All procedure division paragraphs had a six 
digit numeric name (not in order). Sections? What's a section? And it 
used ALTER statements to switch from the default card input to paper 
tape. Comments? What are they? Of course, it was a complete waste of 
money. We junked it and wrote an equivalent suite from scratch.

3) that suite also had a page of assembler whose only comments was "End 
of Month Date. Works until Feb 2100". Apart from the subroutine name 
there were no labels: the whole thing was written using relative jumps 
and register-to-register operations. We knew what it did: you gave it 
today's date as ddmmyy and it returned the last day of the month in the 
same format, e.g. give it 091115 and it would return 301115, and it 
honoured leap years. Now out shop was pretty hot at assembler, but none 
of us could follow this mess through more than 10-12 instructions.
 
4) Another site I worked on as a programmer had a complete separation 
between the systems analysts and programmers. Every so often they'd come 
down with code-level documentation for bug fixes or enhancements. We 
never saw any higher level documentation. Worse yet, the analysts never 
kept documentation: once a change had been signed off, they shredded it.

Back in the day, this sort of thing was pretty much the norm and yes, 
I've worked on banking software so I know they weren't much different.

Now think that some of these systems were written for the first 
generations of IBM System/360 (which were first delivered in 1965), or 
possibly ported from the earlier IBM 1400 , and have been upgraded ever 
since, from tape or ISAM files, to IMS databases and from card input to 
cheque-reader or green-screen online input and finally to RDBMS. Are you 
surprised that they are still COBOL (and maybe even still a bit of 
assembler) and that nobody understands them well enough to do anything 
but patch the core systems as little as possible? New requirements get 
implemented by adding layers of subsidiary code that pulls the data it 
needs out of the core system, does what is needed, and merges it back 
into the database. 

> My first programming job was 16 years ago, with
> one of the largest retailers in the world.  They had a backend process
> which imported nightly data from stores and ran it through some COBOL
> programs using JCL.  Then we took that data and uploaded it to the Unix
> server which had shell scripts and SQR accessing an Oracle database for
> a PeopleSoft application.
>
Yep, sounds like what I've seen in a number of places. The COBOL was 
still there because there was nobody left who understood it well enough 
to rewrite or replace it. 

Or some PHB thought he could save some money on office space by shredding 
all that old documentation "that nobody needs any more".
 

-- 
martin@   | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org       |

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Thread

Things have 'moved on' apparently Eternal Hope <laughingspam99@gmail.com> - 2015-11-06 12:32 +0000
  Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrie@pixelmemory.us> - 2015-11-06 08:25 -0800
    Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-06 12:02 -0800
      Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-06 19:46 -0500
        Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-07 17:21 +0000
          Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-07 12:50 -0500
        Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Eric Douglas <e.d.programmer@gmail.com> - 2015-11-09 05:37 -0800
          Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-09 09:00 -0500
          Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-09 14:56 +0000
          Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-09 19:25 +0000
      Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-07 21:57 -0500
    Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-07 22:02 -0500
      Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently leif.roar@dimnakorr.com - 2015-11-08 02:00 -0600
        Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-08 08:44 -0500
          Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently leif.roar@dimnakorr.com - 2015-11-08 13:08 -0600
        Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Robert Klemme <shortcutter@googlemail.com> - 2015-11-08 18:54 +0100
          Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-08 21:12 +0000
            Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-08 17:05 -0500
              Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-08 23:24 +0000
                Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-08 19:40 -0500
                Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-08 21:32 -0500
                Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-11-09 15:15 +0000
      Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrie@pixelmemory.us> - 2015-11-08 12:10 -0800
        Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> - 2015-11-08 16:00 -0500
        Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-08 16:51 -0500
  Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Jan Burse <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2015-11-08 00:55 +0100
  Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-07 21:28 -0500
    Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-11-07 21:36 -0500
  Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently leif.roar@dimnakorr.com - 2015-11-08 02:12 -0600
  Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently askfor <askfor@nowhere.net> - 2015-11-09 18:02 +0100
  Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrie@pixelmemory.us> - 2015-11-10 22:32 -0800
    Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently Eternal Hope <laughingspam99@gmail.com> - 2015-11-11 07:52 +0000
      Re: Things have 'moved on' apparently ross.finlayson@gmail.com - 2015-11-19 23:28 -0800

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