Cobol - Re: Any comments? (Answers to Pete)

Author

Re: Any comments? (Answers to Pete)

anderschwan@hotmail.com

2006-04-07, 3:55 am

AMEN! Dang it I was interested in the first article then this became a
total bs session on religion - how does that happen? Can people let
religion aside for a minute and help a sister out ?

I like to kick it old school with COBOL, what's wrong with that? I
miss the good ole days, especially now. I work for a startup sponsored
by a big insurance company, and they transferred 5 of us mainframe
programmers (basically we came in as insurance company employees one
day, then the next we were told we were now working for a subsidiary -
congratulations! ) to help them design a web based system accessing a
database stored on a new offsite server. Well, that sucked because
none of us know jack about Windows networking, web development or
Oracle. The real jewel was that the managment in their wisdom let us
think we were migrating to a Unix server for a couple of months, which
would have been great because we've got Unix skills, and would be able
to convert our COBOL with microfocus and run some shell scripts and
such. But then a month ago we meet with this offsite hosting company
they hired, and we find out it is a Windows server that our director
decided on (it's cheaper - yay!). Great. So now we are trying to
figure out what kind of software we need to convert our COBOL programs
to work on a Windows Server. Our deadline is this summer, and they
still haven't ponied up the money for any of the software we suggested.
But they want the five of us to draw up system plans, timelines, meet
with users, negotiate with partners and do all that as well as learn
client server technology in the next 2 w

s. We have one dude who
actually has worked with Oracle & Java- and he knows what ASP is!
Fabulous. The other dude worked with VB and is a windows guy with
valuable experience - from the outside world! Personally I have
touched ten VB 6 programs so I guess they think I'm a guru. We are so
qualified to do this!

Sorry to go on and on but my team lead, manager, etc are still trying
to figure out what software we are going to have to learn on the fly.
The server hosting company is getting tens of thousands of dollars to
basically house 2 windows servers and occasional dusting - no support
or software (except they did buy a tape drive to read our old 3290
tapes, probably off ebay, which I am sure we will get billed 10,000 for
- I am in the wrong business in more ways than one here).

Do you guys think that we should just convert to VB and run some
vbscript (there is an Oracle database we also have to create, but thank
goodness I have a Oracle DBA buddy to help me since I am now the DBA as
well as a developer, and also project manager and Network Services
support.)
What generally is easier, from COBOL, would it be fujitsu cobol, cobol
..net or java or vb .net? I know I'm being a bit of a tool here but
when you are desperate for info it's hard to be eloquent.

If anybody has any ideas then I will personally get down on my knees
and pray for them to go to heaven. I am an old school gal being forced
to learn this new junk in 2-4 months on my own. I can't even get these
morons to buy me a book. At least they haven't restricted google yet!

Donald Tees wrote:
> LX-i wrote:
>
> Then he was not a man, or human in any way. This is the silliest damned
> disscussion I have ever read on usenet. Says a lot for how obsolete
> Cobol has become too. *Anything* can be rationalized if you work at it
> long enough and have been brainwashed enough.
>
> Perhaps the new motto should be "Cobol, as obsolete as the bible".
>
> Donald

Howard Brazee

2006-04-10, 6:55 pm

On Sat, 08 Apr 2006 10:19:06 -0500, LX-i <lxi0007@netscape.net> wrote:

>1+1 = 2 is provable fact - evolution is not. It's not the "theory of
>mathematics" - but, it is the "theory of evolution".

It's as proven as anything else in science. Don't confuse the fact
that scientific explanations are called "theories" with the fact that
some guesses are also called "theories".

Gravity is a theory. There is no difference between a law and a
theory in science.

Howard Brazee

2006-04-10, 6:55 pm

On Sat, 08 Apr 2006 10:19:06 -0500, LX-i <lxi0007@netscape.net> wrote:

>There are many reasons why my children aren't in government school - and
>this is one of them. Seems to me, though, we taught creation
>*exclusively* in our government schools for longer than the theory of
>evolution has existed. Why exclude the old in favor of the new? Why
>not present both sides' viewpoints, and let the children understand?

In that case, make sure you teach them well from the Koran as well as
from the Bible.

Alistair

2006-04-17, 6:55 pm

Howard Brazee wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:45:52 -0500, LX-i <lxi0007@netscape.net> wrote:
>
>
> Are you implying that posts of the obvious in a CoBOL newsgroup should
> require courage?
>
> Or that it's more admirable to be brave and have a position everybody
> else disagrees with?
>
> Who was the guy who used to post in this forum about how good
> Spaghetti code was?

If one coded objects, would that be Ravioli code? ;-)

Alistair

2006-04-17, 6:55 pm

LX-i wrote:
> Howard Brazee wrote:
>
> I just thought it was curious that he comes in as the thread is dying
> and says how upset it made him.
>

I have taken part in a number of religious debates in CLC.
Unfortunately, demands upon my time mean that I have had to leave gaps
between sessions here. I can not remember what you wrote which wound me
up at the time (I was sober, BTW) but the string finally snapped.

>
> His post just reminded me of some who walks up to a group of people and
> then says "me too!".

Yeah, me too. But you are out-numbered here. One original thing about
my post - I did express in no uncertain terms my feelings about the
creationist stance. I think no-one else has let rip over the years as
they are probably too polite and too considerate for your right to
believe as you feel. Creationists pasionately believe in their version
of the truth. I passionately believe in my version too. In former
times, people like me would have taken adherents to the old ways and
burned them at the stake (I reserve that option for the future).

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