Join devRant
Do all the things like
++ or -- rants, post your own rants, comment on others' rants and build your customized dev avatar
Sign Up
Pipeless API
From the creators of devRant, Pipeless lets you power real-time personalized recommendations and activity feeds using a simple API
Learn More
-
*listens to music using Samsung earphones*
Person next to me: Nice song
Neighbor: Nice song
Aliens: Nice song14 -
29-year veteran here. Began programming professionally in 1990, writing BASIC applications for an 8-bit Apple II+ computer. Learned Pascal, C, Clipper, COBOL. Ironic side-story: back then, my university colleagues and I used to make fun of old COBOL programmers. Fortunately, I never had to actually work with the language, but the knowledge allowed me to qualify for a decent job position, back in '92.
For a while, I worked with an IBM mainframe, using REXX and EXEC2 scripting languages for the VM/SP operating system. Then I began programming for the web, wrote my first dynamic web applications with cgi-bin shell and Perl scripts. Used the little-known IBM Net.Data scripting language. I finally learned PHP and settled with it for many, many years.
I always wanted to be a programmer. As a kid I dreamed of being like Kevin Flynn, of TRON - create world famous videogames and live upstairs my own arcade place! Later on, at some point, I was disappointed, I questioned my skills, I thought I should do more, I let other people's expectations make feel bad. Then I finally realized I actually enjoy a quieter, simpler life. And I made peace with it.
I'm now like the old programmers I used to mock 30 years ago. There's so much shit inside my brain. And everything seems so damn complex these days. Frameworks, package managers, transpilers, layers and more layers of code. I try to keep up. And the more I learn, the more it seems I don't know.
Sometimes I feel tired. Yet, I still enjoy creating things and solving problems with programming. I still have fun learning. And after all these years, I learned to be proud of my work, even if it didn't turn out to be as glamorous as in the movies.31 -
What advice would I give a new dev?
"Learn COBOL"
No one specified that it had to be 'good advice'7 -
"I'm not paying for a website that's going to be free to visit, that doesn't make sense"
-A million $ idea guy
28 -
Whenever I come across some acronyms...
CD-ROM: Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
PCMCIA: People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN: It Still Does Nothing
SCSI: System Can’t See It
MIPS: Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
DOS: Defunct Operating System
WINDOWS: Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
OS/2: Obsolete Soon, Too
PnP: Plug and Pray
APPLE: Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
IBM: I Blame Microsoft
MICROSOFT: Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
COBOL: Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language
LISP: Lots of Insipid and Stupid Parentheses
MACINTOSH: Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs10 -
That moment when you make your code such that even dummies can understand it, implement smart ass algos, do all those comment line things for definitions. Then you show your project to your teacher who has this to say :
"Why are you showing me copied code?"
I am like
10 -
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Assembler Chicken: First, it builds the road ......
C Chicken: It crosses the road without looking both ways.
C++ Chicken: The chicken wouldn't have to cross the road, you' d simply refer to him on the other side.
COBOL Chicken: 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING.
IF NO-MORE-VEHICLES
THEN PERFORM 0010-CROSS-THE-ROAD
VARYING STEPS FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL
ON-THE-OTHER-SIDE
ELSE
GO TO 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING
Cray Chicken: Crosses faster than any other chicken, but if you don't dip it in liquid nitrogen first, it arrives on the other side frazzled.
Delphi Chicken: The chicken is dragged across the road and dropped on the other side.
Gopher Chicken: Tried to run but got beaten by the Web chicken.
Intel Pentium Chicken: The chicken crossed 4.9999978 times.
Iomega Chicken: The chicken should have ' backed up' before crossing.
Java Chicken: If your road needs to be crossed by a chicken, then the server will download one to the other side. (Of course, those are chicklets.) See also WMI Monitor.
Linux Chicken: Don't you *dare* try to cross the road the same way we do!
Mac Chicken: No reasonable chicken owner would want a chicken to cross the road, so there's no way to tell it how to cross the road.
Newton Chicken: Can't cluck, can't fly, and can't lay eggs, but you can carry it across the road in your pocket.
OOP Chicken: It doesn't need to cross the road, it just sends a message.
OS/2 Chicken: It crossed the road in style years ago, but it was so quiet that nobody noticed.
Microsoft's Chicken: It's already on both sides of the road. What's more its just bought the road.
Windows 95 Chicken: You see different coloured feathers while it crosses, but when you cook it still tastes like........ chicken.
Quantum Logic Chicken: The chicken is distributed probabilistically on all sides of the road until you observe it on the side of your choice.
VB Chicken: USHighways! <TheRoad.cross> (aChicken)
XP Chicken Jumps out onto the road, turns right, and just keeps on running.
The Longhorn Chicken had an identity crisis and is now calling itself Vista.
The Vista Chicken dazzled itself with its own graphics.20 -
-Some run marathons, I run Python
-Some have energy drinks, I have Java
-Some fight in MMA, I fight with CSS
-Some see new places, I C new Places();
-Some are quick, I am Swift
-Some go camping, I Go Compiling
-Some can judge objectively, I can judge Objective-c
-Some climb mountains, I Scala Structures
-Some live adventurous lives, I live a BASIC one
-Some go ball, I COBOL
-Some watercolor, I Pascal
-Some look for diamonds and emeralds, I look for Ruby and Perl
-Some write novels, I TypeScript
-Some banter, I SmallTalk20 -
I'm 22 and professional COBOL developer working for a bank, would love to move but money is good.
26 -
When people say: "All you do is sit in front of your PC doing stuff. Get a life"
Me: This is my life!5 -
/*
It's a pretty long rant. Hope you didn't get bored :P
*/
So I have this friend of mine who has learnt Python at good level (that's what he says) and is with me in all classes in college. I have worked with C, C++, C# and Java only and hated Python when it was taught (wk44).
So the following happened in the last 2 weeks:
Once he wrote a Python function in terminal just returning a hard coded string (lame right) and will show me how cool is it and that it is sooo much easier.
Whenever we do a mini project together he will force that we use Python. Even in Image processing when everyone is ready to work on Matlab, he insists that Python would be a better option.
We asked that this XYZ is very easy to implement on Matlab.
We then had to listen about the large and great community of Python and that it has Libraries for everything and that it is the greatest programming language ever.
One day he saw my C# project for DFA and NFA simulation which was the greatest project I have "completed" myself, and went like "Hmph, if I was you, I would use python and make a more "professional" code" (then went on arguing as always)
This happened today in Networking lab-
(Sockets was taught and we are expected to learn its programming aspects)
All students: Open linuxhowtos.org and start reading on socket programming
He : Opens some websites and downloads books on Networking with Python or someting
Now while I am reading the documentation of sockets and bind, he opens spider IDE, copy-paste the code in the book and start bugging ME that he is getting all these errors like literally showing me those errors and whining about all those problems.
Me: We are supposed to learn this in C. Here take a look at this link.
HE: No I'll use Python cuz it is better than your C. It has libraries for everything and is much easier.
Me: Alright whatever I am fed up, do whatever you want11 -
someone who thought me about computer when i was a child. someone who thought me machine code, and cobol. someone who thought me about the world. now he is, my dad, hospitalized again (12th times already this year) for cardiac arrest. and today, he is getting better and showing a lot of progress.
This situation thought me again about how life works and how hard can it be. my dad divorced with my mom since i am 3 months old and i've been living with my aunt since. and now he married again with a women with 2 child. i though he was gonna be happy. and apparently not. at the time of the cardiac arrest, his wife don't even want to bother and getting involved if her husband got anything emergency like this, every single thing is thrown at me (or my aunt), from calling the ambulance, paying the hospital and medical bills, accompany my dad, every minor perks, Everything and Always. Once, i reach the point and i'm very angry to her, but my dad always hold me back. and now i don't even want to bother, care, or whatever to his wife again. i just care for my father.
This will temper me more and more, for anyone who searching for your love of your life, please be careful. there is still alot of woman who doesnt have any heart.
Life is hard.
10 -
This might sound cliché, but my dad. I called him Pop. He was a COBOL programmer, and he taught me the fundamentals. He would bring home his work and debug on paper, and I was his rubber duck.
When I got older, we were each other's rubber duck. Whenever I was stuck, he'd throw a suggestion out that might have seemed off base at first, but was somehow related to what I was working on.5 -
"We bought the source code for this tremendous app that does blah blah blah "
"Cool, in which language is written?"
"Cobol"4 -
Now I lay me down to rest,
I pray I pass tomorrow's test.
If I should die before I wake,
That's one less test I'll have to take.6 -
Today when showing a game that I made:
X: So you used Unity, it's so easy
Me: Yeah I mean compared to....
X: Thus since you used a game engine, I can't say your game was completly developed by you.
Me: So you are saying that since a builder didn't make bricks thus he can't claim credits on the building he made?13 -
I wonder why banks are always so terribly insecure, given how much money there's for grabs in there for hackers.
Just a while ago I got a new prepaid credit card from bpost, our local postal service that for some reason also does banking. The reason for that being that - thank you 'Murica! - a lot of websites out there don't accept anything but credit cards and PayPal. Because who in their right mind wouldn't use credit cards, right?! As it turns out, it's pretty much every European I've spoken to so far.
That aside, I got that card, all fine and dandy, it's part of the Mastercard network so at least I can get my purchases from those shitty American sites that don't accept anything else now. Looked into the manual of it because bpost's FAQ isn't very clear about what my login data for their online customer area now actually is. Not that their instruction manual was either.
I noticed in that manual that apparently the PIN code can't be changed (for "security reasons", totally not the alternative that probably they didn't want to implement it), and that requesting a forgotten PIN code can be done with as little as calling them up, and they'll then send the password - not a reset form, the password itself! IN THE FUCKING MAIL.
Because that's apparently how financial institutions manage their passwords. The fact that they know your password means that they're storing it in plain text, probably in a database with all the card numbers and CVC's next to it. Wouldn't that be a treasure trove for cybercriminals, I wonder? But YOU the customer can't change your password, because obviously YOU wouldn't be able to maintain a secure password, yet THEY are obviously the ones with all the security and should be the ones to take out of YOUR hands the responsibility to maintain YOUR OWN password.
Banking logic. I fucking love it.
As for their database.. I reckon that that's probably written in COBOL too. Because why wouldn't you.23 -
A is for Assembly, a wizard's spell
B is for Bootstrap, so bland and the same. And also for Brainf*ck, will blow you away
C is for COBOL, your grandad knows that
D is for daemon, your server knows what
E is for Express.js, you node what is coming
F is for FORTRAN, which is perferct for sciencing
G is for GNU which is GNU not UNIX
H is for Haskell using functional units
I is for Intance, An action of Object
J is for Java plays with them Always
K is for Kotlin, Android's new toy
L is for Lisp, scheming a ploy
M is for Matlab, who knows how it works
N is for Node a bloatware of code
O is for Objective Pascal, you did not expect that
P is for programming, we all love to do that
Q is for Queries, A database is made
R is for R, statistics are great
S is for Selenium, you have to test that
S is for Smalltalk, let's make it all brief
T is for Turing Test, how human is this?
U is for Unix, build with all talents
V is for Visual Studio, built with all laments
W is for Web, lets build something cool
X is for XHTML, remember all that?
Y is for Y2K, I'm tired as f*ck
Z is for Zip, let's zip is all now.
Get yourself coffee and back to the grind.8 -
Was asked to check the sales team server as it was running slow.
Apart from redundant processes and users with too much permissions I found a "Cobol" folder under one of the sales team member's home folder.
If it weren't the sales people I would immediately disregard this as trolling but with them it's quite possible that this is a real attempt to learn programming...
...most likely from the facebook ads with the hooded guys that offer to teach you to code in 10 days for $800.
5 -
Do the 'best' programmers use fewest lines of code?
The best programmers write the appropriate number of lines of code. No more, no less.10 -
That moment when your password is constantly rejected and you realize that the fucking NUM LOCK IS OFF.
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
(⌐■_■)–︻╦╤─ 💻6 -
From the director of the department within a large investment bank: "We will be looking into converting all Java code to Cobol because it is easier to work with".
Needless to say I started looking for a new job that night.6 -
You can believe or not but it’s just one of those stories. It’s long and crazy and it probably happened.
A few years ago I was interviewed by this big insurance company. They asked me on linkedin and were interested. They didn’t specify who they were so I didn’t specify who I am either.
After they revealed who they are I was just curious how they fuck they want to spend those billions of dollars they claimed in their press notes about this fucking digital transformation everyone is talking about. The numbers were big.
I got into 3 or 4 phone/skype interviews without technical questions and I was invited to see them by person.
I know that it would be funny because they didn’t asked me for CV so they didn’t know anything about me and I was just more curious how far I can get without revealing myself.
They canceled interview at midnight and I was in the middle of Louis de Funès comedies marathon so I didn’t sleep whole night. I assumed they would just reschedule but then they phoned me at 8 am if I can come because they made mistake.
So at first talk I was just interviewed by some manager I knowed after 5 minutes he would be shitty as fuck and demand stupid things in no time because he is not technical. He was trying to explain me that they got so great people and they do everything so fast.
From my experience speed and programming are not the things that match. ( for reference of my thought see three virtues of a GREAT programmer )
So I just pissed them off by asking what they would do with me when I finish this transformation thingy next year. ( Probably get rid off and fire at some point were my thoughts )
Then I got this technical interview on newest gold color MacBook pro - pair programming ( they were showing off how much money they have all the time ).
The person asked me to transform json and get some data in javascript .
Really that was the thing and I was so bored and tired that I just asked in what ES standard I can code.
The problem was despite he told me I can do anything and they are using newest standards ( yeah right ) the “for of” loop didn’t worked and he even didn’t know that syntax existed. So I explained him it’s the newest syntax pointing mozilla page and that he need to adjust his configuration. Because we didn’t have time for that I just did it using var an function by writing bunch of code.
When he was asking me if I want to write some tests probably because my code looked ugly as fuck ( I didn’t sleep for more then 24 hours at that point and wanted to live the building as fast as I can) I told I finished and there is no time for tests because it’s so simple and dumb task. The code worked.
After showing me how awesome their office is ( yeah please I work from home so I don’t care ) I got into the talk with VP of engineering and he was the only person who asked me where is my CV because he didn’t know what to talk about. I just laughed at him and told him that I got here just by talking how awesome I am so we can talk about whatever he wants.
After quick talk about 4 different problems where I introduced 4 different languages and bunch of libraries just because I can and I worked with those he was mine.
He told me about this awesome stack they’re building with kubernetes and micro services and the shitty future where they want to put IOT into peoples ass to sell them insurance and suddenly I got awake and started to want that job but behind that all awesomeness there was just .NET bridge with stack of mainframes running COBOL that they want to get rid off and move company to the cloud.
They needed mostly people who would dump code to different technology stack and get rid of old stack ( and probably those old people ) and I was bored again because I work more in r&d field where you sometimes need to think about something that don’t exist and be creative.
I asked him why it would take so much time so he explained me how they would do the transformation by consolidating bunch of companies and how much money they would make by probably firing people that don’t know about it to this day.
I didn’t met any person working permanently there but only consultants from corporations and people hired in some 3rd party company created by this mother company.
They didn’t responded with any decision after me wasting so much time and they asked me for interview for another position year after.
I just explained HR person how they treat people and I don’t want to work there for any money.
If You reached this point it is the end and if it was entertaining thank YOU I did my best.
Have a nice day.5 -
Had a rough time. Dropped out of college twice. Got sent by a shrink to be tested for ADHD. Investigation dropped after phone interviewing my scientology parents. Depressed and admitted to the ward twice. Homeless for a month.
But come Monday I'll start my employment as a COBOL developer. My first qualified job! Code and all resources for learning online has really saved me.8 -
A Cobol programmer made so much money doing Y2K remediation that he was able to have himself cryogenically frozen when he died. One day in the future, he was unexpectedly resurrected.
When he asked why he was unfrozen, he was told:
"It's the year 9999 - and you know Cobol" -
A memorial for my favorite rant of all time "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Assembler Chicken: First, it builds the road ......
C Chicken: It crosses the road without looking both ways.
C++ Chicken: The chicken wouldn't have to cross the road, you' d simply refer to him on the other side.
COBOL Chicken: 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING.
IF NO-MORE-VEHICLES
THEN PERFORM 0010-CROSS-THE-ROAD
VARYING STEPS FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL
ON-THE-OTHER-SIDE
ELSE
GO TO 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING
Cray Chicken: Crosses faster than any other chicken, but if you don't dip it in liquid nitrogen first, it arrives on the other side frazzled.
Delphi Chicken: The chicken is dragged across the road and dropped on the other side.
Gopher Chicken: Tried to run but got beaten by the Web chicken.
Intel Pentium Chicken: The chicken crossed 4.9999978 times.
Iomega Chicken: The chicken should have ' backed up' before crossing.
Java Chicken: If your road needs to be crossed by a chicken, then the server will download one to the other side. (Of course, those are chicklets.) See also WMI Monitor.
Linux Chicken: Don't you *dare* try to cross the road the same way we do!
Mac Chicken: No reasonable chicken owner would want a chicken to cross the road, so there's no way to tell it how to cross the road.
Newton Chicken: Can't cluck, can't fly, and can't lay eggs, but you can carry it across the road in your pocket.
OOP Chicken: It doesn't need to cross the road, it just sends a message.
OS/2 Chicken: It crossed the road in style years ago, but it was so quiet that nobody noticed.
Microsoft's Chicken: It's already on both sides of the road. What's more its just bought the road.
Windows 95 Chicken: You see different coloured feathers while it crosses, but when you cook it still tastes like........ chicken.
Quantum Logic Chicken: The chicken is distributed probabilistically on all sides of the road until you observe it on the side of your choice.
VB Chicken: USHighways! <TheRoad.cross> (aChicken)
XP Chicken Jumps out onto the road, turns right, and just keeps on running.
The Longhorn Chicken had an identity crisis and is now calling itself Vista.
The Vista Chicken dazzled itself with its own graphics.21 -
Exactly 10 years ago, my first job interview for a position as java developer:
Tech guy, asking me lot of deep questions about last java improvements, upgrades of newest web frameworks etc.
I answer very well.
He seems satisfied. He is about to leave, and just on the door, he turns and he asks this "just-one-more-question" in Lieutenant Columbo style:
"ehy do you know something about COBOL"?
Me: "well, ....yeees" (thinking: it's a programming language, only thing I know, plus I want the job)
He: "...and would you mind...." (some vague gestures)
Me: "...hmm...not at all..."
I got the job. All the project was about a huge legacy COBOL program. Almost no java.
I soon discovered that nobody inside the company wanted actually to deal with that project either....
Sometimes during interview you try to sell yourself, but it's actually the other way around, they are trying to sell something to you...7 -
Just found this little gem when I ducked RBL.. must be a super high quality bank with that meta description :3
2 -
You know whom I hate more than apple fanboys, "language" fanboys!
Yeah...that's a thin now.
(I'll post the whole story when I reach my room)8 -
Schools in India be like - "We teach CS from 3rd grade!"
Me: "Name a few programing languages"
3rd grade student: "Basic, cobol, pascal..."
Me: (thinking) "Am I in stone age...?"6 -
Programming Languages are Like Cars:
Assembler: A formula I race car. Very fast but difficult to drive and maintain.
FORTRAN II: A Model T Ford. Once it was the king of the road.
FORTRAN IV: A Model A Ford.
FORTRAN 77: a six-cylinder Ford Fairlane with standard transmission and no seat belts.
COBOL: A delivery van. It's bulky and ugly but it does the work.
BASIC: A second-hand Rambler with a rebuilt engine and patched upholstery. Your dad bought it for you to learn to drive. You'll ditch it as soon as you can afford a new one.
PL/I: A Cadillac convertible with automatic transmission, a two-tone paint job, white-wall tires, chrome exhaust pipes, and fuzzy dice hanging in the windshield.
C++: A black Firebird, the all macho car. Comes with optional seatbelt (lint) and optional fuzz buster (escape to assembler).
ALGOL 60: An Austin Mini. Boy that's a small car.
ALGOL 68: An Aston Martin. An impressive car but not just anyone can drive it.
Pascal: A Volkswagon Beetle. It's small but sturdy. Was once popular with intellectual types.
liSP: An electric car. It's simple but slow. Seat belts are not available.
PROLOG/LUCID: Prototype concept cars.
FORTH: A go-cart.
LOGO: A kiddie's replica of a Rolls Royce. Comes with a real engine and a working horn.
APL: A double-decker bus. It takes rows and columns of passengers to the same place all at the same time but it drives only in reverse and is instrumented in Greek.
Ada: An army-green Mercedes-Benz staff car. Power steering, power brakes, and automatic transmission are standard. No other colors or options are available. If it's good enough for generals, it's good enough for you.
Java: All-terrain very slow vehicle.10 -
Just came across this quote...
"The worst thing you can do for your organization is prove how smart you are."
Liked it and thought I'd share it to all the devs out there.4 -
Telling an Arch beginner to try Gentoo is same as telling someone who switched from Java to C to try assembly.3
-
The best thing about having COBOL in my last internship is not that it opens you a lot of new job opportunities, is the look of fear and respect of your coworkers when you say that you learned it.1
-
This is the most hilarious stackoverflow rant ever, quote:
"Strong cryptography only means the passwords must be encrypted while the user is inputting them but then they should be moved to a recoverable format for later use."
Full rant:
http://serverfault.com/questions/...6 -
Remember the time when someone appreciated your code and praised the implementation, said that your code was better??
Yeah, neither do I.1 -
Saw one of these in store today.
Who designs these "Ergonomic" things?
My fingers starts aching just by looking at this..
13 -
GO AND FUCK YOURSELVES. MANY PEOPLE RANT ABOUT JOB HUBTING AND INSANE REQUIREMENTS. SO HERE IN SPAIN I'M SURE THE SITUATION IS WORSE. NO FUCKING JOBS. WHEN YOU FIND AN OFFER THAT DOESN'T MENTION PHP, JAVA OR COBOL OHH. YOU NEED TO BE A FUCKING WP, FULL STACK, ANDROID AND IOS DEVELOPER, A FUCKING SYSADMIN AND HAVE 99 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE. SO YOU CAN SAY: hey search a junior offer! YEAH SURE ONE SECOND. 4-15 FUCKING YEARS OF FUCKING EXPERIENCE. GO AND FUCK YOURSELVES AAAAH
7 -
Imagine yourself being a CTO back then.
Brand new Acura NSX. No MacBooks, ThinkPads are hot. Your company has its own skyscraper. CASE tools are just introduced and they’re hotter than blockchain now. You do software architecture in IBM Rational Rose, typing on your Model M and thinking really hard about Java OOP which is very hot right now.
You have Erlang servers at your own data center. You laugh at people writing in COBOL. You excited about aspect-oriented programming.
What a wonderful time.3 -
Some people hate a language due to problem they faced while using it. I simply hate some language because code written in it doesn't looks good.4
-
COBOL is something I use at work. Typically, you see IF blocks like this
IF condition
Stuff
END-IF.
But the END-IF part if actually optional. You can just use a period and it does the same thing.
IF condition
Stuff.
Many headaches if not caught when reading.6 -
So as millions of americans file for unemployment the state of New Jersey is beging for help from COBOL programmers to keep their 40+ year old unemployment systems running. Who knows COBOL here?
https://qz.com/1832988/...
5 -
So today i went to another town for a car service, and by accident i met a very old man looking at the cars in the saloon, he was very calm person, in conversation he said he was system analyst and a COBOL developer in a big industry... but what got me the most he said he survided FOUR heart attacks... i don't know if that was a common practice for COBOL developers but i do php most of the time... so... i just wanted to say hello guys... and delete my browser history if i'm not around for some time :)4
-
Today I gave my Network assessment (code) on an A4 sheet as told by the professor. He will later type the code and check if runs or not and award marks !!
ಠ▃ಠ 凸ಠ益ಠ)凸 Where is my stress ball?4 -
So after exactly 30 minutes of building a basic interpreter (yes I'm back on the interpreter wagon) in python, I have once again come to the conclusion that python can go fuck itself with its backwards and inconsistent syntax with needlessly over worked and backwards data structures...
Would rather work in fucking COBOL at this stage...3 -
Best laptop to run your linux distro
"Razer founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan has announced that Razer is soon going to support Linux distros on its Razer Blade laptop series officially. To welcome the suggestions from the community, Razer has created a new Linux Corner hub"5 -
*follow-up to https://devrant.com/rants/1887422*
The burnt remnants of my ID card's authentication information, waiting for the wind to come pick it up. It's stored in my password database now and committed to my git server, as it should be. Storing PIN and PUK codes on paper, whatever government cunt thought thought that that was a good idea...
If you've got identification papers containing authentication information like PIN and PUK codes, by all means add them to your password manager (if you're using Linux, I'd like to recommend GNU Pass) at once and burn the physical version. There's no reason why you'd want those on paper, unless you store your passwords on a post-it too.
At least that's as much as me and possibly you as citizens can do. Our governments are doomed anyway, given the shitty security policy they have, and likely the many COBOL mainframes still in use today. Honestly, the meddlings of Russia with the US elections doesn't seem too far-fetched, given this status quo. It actually surprises me that this kind of stuff doesn't happen more often, given that certain governments hire private pentesters yet can't secure their own infrastructure.
-
!rant, but kinda
My new director wants to buy a solution for a portal environment that my institution currently has. I have no qualms over it. My only issue was the company that sells it to be known to provide close to 0 fucking support when shit arises.
During a presentation we were told that they were using state of the art JAVA technology to render items on the page and that their ApI was easy for devs to grasp. This caught my attention since I know of very few and obscure Java frameworks that work with frontend tech (as in, your frontend logic is legit in Java)
The sales people proceed to show us React. Obviously thinking that no one knows what REact was. The dude continues with "This is new Java tech" all proud and shit prompting me to interject that it is "Javascript" the dude brushes it away saying "same thing" to which I reply with "Negative, please make sure that you properly discern Java from Javascript since Java is to Javascript as car is to carpet, completely different environments" the dude sarcastically says that "oh well, didn't know one of the people here was more aware of our own technology than we are" to which I say "and not only that, but the final say in us adopting your tech is mine, so I would rather you keep the sarcasm and the attitude to yourself, bring in a tech person if need be and learn these distinctions since we don't work with Java"
My new director later on went to talk to me since he apparently thought that Java and JS were related in some way. I can't really fault it, last time the dude touched programming was in the early 2000s, previous boss was a C and COBOL developer, but the previous dude would ALWAYS take my word no questions ask, this dude was there asking me if I was sure that Javascript and Java were really completely different environments asking me to show him.
I do not like to be questioned. I shoot the shit here and don't really involve myself with more technical aspects under this platform unless it involves concrete architecture discussions and even there I really don't care with engaging on a forum concerning that. But concerning my job I really.......really do not like to be questioned by people that know way the fuck less than me. I started coding when I was 17, I am 30 now, with a degree and years of experience. I really hate to be questioned by this dude.2 -
HTML & CSS.
To me they just feel wrong.
I have been working with them for a little over 20 years now, and it feels like very little has improved. Sure we learned to make things look a bit nicer, we got new tags and properties, but the syntax is still horrible.
The fact that both are replaced by other imperfect languages (haml, jade, less, sass, etc) is just a confirmation that their paradigms are about as fucked up and impossible to exterminate as cobol.
Which points at another problem: browsers, and how slow the web upgrade cycle is — adding native support for nested style definitions in css, or replacing html with a json document seems like a trivial problem, if it weren't for the dozens of browsers and the excruciating pace at which they can adopt standards.8 -
It’s throw back Thursday folks...
Today’s post sets us back to a time long before the internet. Before C ... from the days of FORTRAN.. COBOL .. and LISP... How was info not taught in classes and published in large books shared???? Well it’s was journals like these, sent out monthly and quarterly for some. They would publish their findings to these type “magazines” but extremely technical.
This is one of the oldest editions have. Trying to collect them.
I believe in Knuths TAOCP, he references the first article of this edition... I’ve seen that article referenced in one of my books but i forgot which book.. pretty sure TAOCP.. anyway..
Just a fun throw back. Btw... just because it’s from 59’ doesn’t mean the information is irrelevant.. the information is facts the equations are true.
13 -
COBOL is fun they said.
But writing codes + calculating every space is sooo f*cking hard.
But I'm enjoying it tho.
3 -
coworker: you know, if you dedicate your life to mastering cobol and fortran you could just make money working on medical software
me: yes because I'd love to be a martyr for tech2 -
At a previous job, boss & owner of company would waste hours of my time to show me, at his own desk, every small detail of some random feature he had fallen in love with on some random webpage he found, while saying "I don't want to disrupt your plans or anything, this is just something to keep in the back of your minds, as this would be a really nice thing to have, even tho none of the clients have asked for this and I have asked no one else for a second opinion, and I will most likely ask you to remove this feature in the future because I will finally have realized it wasn't that good an idea anyway."
Ok dipshit, what the fuck are we supposed to do with this information? Every week from this moment on you will ask whether we have found the time to implement this feature, even though you are fully aware that our schedule has no room for random, unplanned features and that we are already not able to meet the unreasonable deadline you pulled out of your ass two weeks into a development process that would end up taking 8+ months.
We are already overworked, we already work hours upon hours of unpaid overtime, and yet you still think it reasonable to pull us away from our work every other fucking day to talk about random extra features you want added, but don't want added to the roadmap because you want no delays... Fuck you, fuck your toxic attitude, fuck your meetings where you spend half an hour complaining about features we are still in the process of developing the backend functionality for (on test servers) not having the right font colour for the text, and fuck your legacy desktop software originally written in COBOL that you now want moved to "the cloud".
I would rather be unemployed and live as a hobo on the streets with a "will code for food" sign than work for you ever again. -
CIA – Computer Industry Acronyms
CD-ROM: Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
PCMCIA: People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN: It Still Does Nothing
SCSI: System Can’t See It
MIPS: Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
DOS: Defunct Operating System
WINDOWS: Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
OS/2: Obsolete Soon, Too
PnP: Plug and Pray
APPLE: Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
IBM: I Blame Microsoft
MICROSOFT: Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
COBOL: Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language
LISP: Lots of Insipid and Stupid Parentheses
MACINTOSH: Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs
AAAAA: American Association Against Acronym Abuse.
WYSIWYMGIYRRLAAGW: What You See Is What You Might Get If You’re Really Really Lucky And All Goes Well.2 -
I've just opened LinkedIn (I don't know why) and I found an hilarious job offered in the home page: they are searching a JUNIOR programmer (for an internship) having experience in RPG IV programming language and OS/400. I never heard of that so I googled it and... LMAO.5
-
I HATE PHP.
I hate it with all my guts.
It's weirdly cobbled together, nothing fits for anything, it's a NON PROFESSIONAL TOOL. AT. ALL. PLEASE STOP DOIN' STUFF WITH IT AND REWRITE YOUR STACK IN COBOL/BRAINF**K.
I HATE IT.14 -
Why is it that virtually all new languages in the last 25 years or so have a C-like syntax?
- Java wanted to sort-of knock off C++.
- C# wanted to be Java but on Microsoft's proprietary stack instead of SUN's (now Oracle's).
- Several other languages such as Vala, Scala, Swift, etc. do only careful evolution, seemingly so as to not alienate the devs used to previous C-like languages.
- Not to speak of everyone's favourite enemy, JavaScript…
- Then there is ReasonML which is basically an alternate, more C-like, syntax for OCaml, and is then compiled to JavaScript.
Now we're slowly arriving at the meat of this rant: back when I started university, the first semester programming lecture used Scheme, and provided a fine introduction to (functional) programming. Scheme, like other variants of Lisp, is a fine language, very flexible, code is data, data is code, but you get somewhat lost in a sea of parentheses, probably worse than the C-like languages' salad of curly braces. But it was a refreshing change from the likes of C, C++, and Java in terms of approach.
But the real enlightenment came when I read through Okasaki's paper on purely functional data structures. The author uses Standard ML in the paper, and after the initial shock (because it's different than most everything else I had seen), and getting used to the notation, I loved the crisp clarity it brings with almost no ceremony at all!
After looking around a bit, I found that nobody seems to use SML anymore, but there are viable alternatives, depending on your taste:
- Pragmatic programmers can use OCaml, which has immutability by default, and tries to guide the programmer to a functional programming mindset, but can accommodate imperative constructs easily when necessary.
- F# was born as OCaml on .NET but has now evolved into its own great thing with many upsides and very few downsides; I recommend every C# developer should give it a try.
- Somewhat more extreme is Haskell, with its ideology of pure functions and lazy evaluation that makes introducing side effects, I/O, and other imperative constructs rather a pain in the arse, and not quite my piece of cake, but learning it can still help you be a better programmer in whatever language you use on a day-to-day basis.
Anyway, the point is that after working with several of these languages developed out of the original Meta Language, it baffles me how anyone can be happy being a curly-braces-language developer without craving something more succinct and to-the-point. Especially when it comes to JavaScript: all the above mentioned ML-like languages can be compiled to JavaScript, so developing directly in JavaScript should hardly be a necessity.
Obviously these curly-braces languages will still be needed for a long time coming, legacy systems and all—just look at COBOL—, but my point stands.7 -
on my college days (8yrs ago), i had to study COBOL as part of syllabus....
you had to write lots of codes as header on every simple program you write, define every variable you gonna use (with how much space they need) upfront..
and you can't leave a blank space any where in the code unless it is required!!
best part? you need to start every line of code with 7 blank spaces! and each line should end at 72 chars...if you have more to type in a line, the next line's 7the char should be a dash(-) to indicate so..
and the compiler's error messages are shit!
now, even with modern languages, people think its hard to code!
3 -
COBOL, Clipper, DBase, FlashCode, DOS 3.30, Novell, dot-Printers ... Now learning Swift... Emojis for variables! ... I'm to old for this..... Damn millennial languages.
5 -
I was asked to add full page takeover announcements to a website, even though there's a perfectly reasonable announcement system already in place.
I objected on religious grounds - doing that would undoubtedly get me sent to developer hell (also knows as COBOL).
But the client wasn't convinced so I made them a demo. I immediately got a message back saying "wow, that's a lot more annoying than I thought, please remove it".
Of course all of this was done in a separate branch, so this blasphemous code would never be in my master commit history.1 -
Taught myself assembler at 13 (this was the mid 1980s) and wondered how the hell people could stand to do this. Then I found out there were more abstract languages like BASIC or COBOL. So I taught myself BASIC and MS-DOS batch scripting. Various other languages came later (PROLOG, Pascal, C, Smalltalk, C++, VisualBasic, etc). But it’s never been easy for me because I suck at math and complicated logic structures. Especially not good with OOP. My brain was ruined by learning procedural coding first. It refuses to incorporate OOP.
-
I read the pragmatic programmer a few months ago. The book advised learning a different programming language every month or so. I was doing Advent of Code so I decided to try out Elm because functional programming is all the rage these days.
It took me one hour to convert a string of numbers to an array of numbers! And when I finally finished with that I couldn't understand how to compare each element with the next one in an array using map or filter.
I realised that I've become too comfortable using javascript. Worst case scenario: In a few years when javascript is obsolete I'll be like those old dudes that know only Cobol. Best case scenario: I'll always be too dumb to earn a nice salary.
On a positive note: The first time I tried Elm I didn't understand jack shit, now I understood a few things.5 -
So, whenever I delay windows 10 update restart a few times, things start breaking. Wifi doesn't work, 100% cpu, ram or mem usage, sound problems etc. And all this goes away once I submit my soul and update. I'm sick of this shit 😡. Today I got a BSOD after which it updated and things seem fine FOR NOW.
Does this happen to other Win 10 users?8 -
“A system called COBOL...” got a shout out on CNN. 🙄 Blame the IT departments for cheap ass lawmakers providing funds... I hate IBM as much as the next breathing human but damn 😡😡2
-
Software engineering doesn't evolving the way you think of it.
There are no new big patterns. There are no new big concepts and ideas to bring that evolution to us. Rob Pike thinks that the concepts he used twenty years ago are the best possible way of implementing everything and he creates Golang.
The evolution of software engineering, and maybe the whole evolution as a concept is a tick-tock. Software engineering had its latest tick at nineties, when the concepts we call modern were developed. And the latest tock was the rise of the internet, and it given the single-computer-centered Von Neumann architecture really hard challenges. I mean ticks are theoretical inventions and patterns and ideas and etc, while tock is more of some practical, business-oriented implementations.
PHP is still in use. We have troubles with scaling and deployment. Banking systems still run old Java, Windows XP and even COBOL. We had persistence really, really long time ago, and now frontenders reinvent it and call it 'immutability'!
We had our tick many, many years ago. It's time for tock. With not only scientific but commercial use of things such as Clojure, CRDTs and maybe Rust lang, we are heading straight to our new big tock, which'll bring us new great problems to solve.
That's how any evolution goes. -
There is no damn worldwide shortage of Cobol devs. There's a few localised, highly publicised cases where those devs are needed, those cases are diminishing fast, and that's about it.
Please stop touting this nonsense that everyone who learns Cobol can just drop into a job and make 6 figures. The only thing that's going to come out of this is a worldwide surplus of devs who learnt Cobol, and are now gobsmacked no-one wants to hire them to work in an antiquated language they have zero real-world experience in. -
Does anyone ever fear falling behind the technology 8-ball.
I made a career move from web dev to mainframe in COBOL. I've been here two weeks and feel like learning COBOL is wasting my time and making me fall behind.
Thoughts?10 -
So today morning I got a driver related BSOD after which during restart, my pc went into windows update. Everything was going fine when power failed and it shut off. Now I am stuck with this...
Good thing I have linux in dual boot so work is getting done.
-
Why can’t we take the slow COBOL powered State Computer Systems and run it on more powerful servere? Why is a rewrite needed?11
-
There are a couple:
A system that updates user accounts to connect them into our wifi system by parsing thousands of processing files written in Clojure. The project was short lived and mainly experimental, It has complete test cases and the jar generated from it is still purring silently on the main application. It was used to replace an $85k vendor application that made no fucking sense. The code has not been touched in 2 years and the jar is still there. The dba mentioned the solution to the vendor, the vendor tried buying it from me, but being that it belongs to the institution nothing was touched, still, it got the VP's attention that I can make programs that would be bought for that level, it caught his attention even more when I showed him the codebase and he recognized a Lisp variant (he is old, and was back in the day a Fortran and Cobol developer)
A small Python categorical ML program that determines certain attributes of user generated data and effectively places them on the proper categories on the main DB. The program generates estimates of the users and the predictions have a 95% correctness rate. The DBA still needs to double check the generated results before doing the db updates. I don't remember how I coded it because I was mostly drunk when I experiment on the scenario. It also got the attention of the VP and director since the web tech manager was apparently doing crazy ML shit that they were not expecting me to do, it made them paranoid that I would eventually leave for a ML role somewhere, still here, but I want more moneys!!
A program that generates PDF documentation from user data, written in Go, Python and Perl (yes Perl) I even got shit from the lead developer since I used languages outside of their current scope of work. Dude had no option but to follow along with it :P since I am his boss
Many more. I am normally proud of my work code. But my biggest moment is my current ntural language processing unit that I am trying to code for my home, but I don't have enough power to build it with my computers, currently, my AI is too stupid, but sometimes it does reply back to my commands and does the things I ask it to do (simple things, opening a browser, search for a song etc) but 7 times out of ten it wont work :P -
Recruiters or their bosses with sick ambitions and zero feedback.
Do I need to say more?
Spent few days to make my site looking good on desktop/mobile with few screenshots and even video to show my working projects in production. Even more few days to make really detailed 2 A4 CV with my previous job and what I was doing there. All generated from markdown.
I even saved money around half a year to go and live month in other country (Ireland, Dublin) and then on site send about 150 applications on various sites, emails, linkedout and local IT meetings.
Null, nada, nil, NaN accepted applications.
Is it some kind of joke? All companies almost cries for new workers and they don't even answer someone which founded and have no problem with growing own IT company for almost 5 years with self learnt, practically applied in production linux, HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, Go, bash, KVM and Openvz virtualization knowledge?
What they really want?
Astronaut with Brainfuck and Cobol with fluent backwards speaking Esperanto riding on monocycle with 3 hands and no need for sleep for -1 whoopercoin?1 -
I'm Programmer/Analyst in one of the hgh ranking BPO company here at Philippines.
I'm currently on a project, I'm on a team who's managing machines parts. The project is CATERPILLAR.
The biggest challenge here is if there is a outage on the system, the number of Severity 1 issues keeps coming like there's no tomorrow. And there's only 5 of us on Tier 2 which is managing this abends, errors, bugs in the system.
Is there a way on preventing this outage/connection error. Like HELLO IT IS A BIG COMPANY !!! HOW THE HELL THEY CAN'T EVEN MANAGE THEIR CONNECTION!!!!2 -
Was reading this blog. COBOL started as a low code application for managers to write code in a language close to English.
The more things change, the more they remain retarded.4 -
Anybody know any good .net web devs in Sydney? I'm sick of reading seek and LinkedIn resumes where 95% of the applicants have a phone number starting with +91 and are skilled in "user testing and SAP".
I mean, what are they expecting? "Absolutely sir, we will mail you a first class plane ticket right now for your interview! Oh .net was just a suggestion, you can code in COBOL if you prefer. And don't worry about that pesky working Visa, we can pay cash!"3 -
So...Microsoft is releasing a Linux based IoT OS. What does devRant community has to say about it?9
-
My mum was programming at high school. It was COBOL, but she never used it again. So thats how she lost every sense for programming. Even like 2 months earlier, she thought I am just playing games and watching videos, but then we finally had a talk and she understands now. I am happy.
-
I want to rant about tech YouTubers. As one myself, I feel like I do an even exchange with my viewers.
I want your attention, I don't feel like I deserve it, so I teach you something coding related. You get something of value, I get your attention.
But that's not the case with most in this space. Idiots feel like they can spout whatever bullshit they think about.
They're all stupid with their stupid fucking titles and ideas. Let's review some.
Video Title: How much Javascript you should know to get in tech??
Anyone with > 2 braincells: WTF !!!!!
Video Title: How would I start over to learn coding if I could?
My Reaction: Nope, I wouldn't. The things that I did and didn't is exactly what my journey is and I would do it all over again.
And I get the intent, you're trying to put a roadmap for beginners but they're not going to follow exactly how you lay it out. And why are you trying to establish that there is a correct way of learning coding? Everyone learns at different paces at different times. It's a journey not a race.
Video Title: A day in the life of {COMPANY} engineer.
My Reaction: What do you want to show everyone? Your fancy office? Your perks? The job perks which 99% of other devs won't have?
Video Title: How to crack FAANG interviews.
My Reaction: Well, only the top 1% is going to get an interview anyway. You're not acknowledging the fact that the acceptance rate is < 1% in these companies. Creating a video like this creates false expectations in beginner's heads. And they only see these companies as their only shots of making careers. They dont consider startups or starting their own companies.
Video Title: Top 4 dying programming languages.
My Reaction: WTF !!! COBOL was invented in 1959 and there still is demand for it. And my blood started boiling when Tiff in Tech said PHP is a dying language. Like seriously????
Video Title: Top paying programming languages in 2023.
My Reaction: Please, come on. We know it's Java. And 99% of the viewers ain't getting that job. You're just wasting time listing out languages. By the time someone starts from scratch and gets to a position of getting a job, something else will be the new fad.
Video Title: What advice would I give myself when I was starting?
My Reaction: Really? You couldn't think about saying what advice you'd give to your viewers? Are you really that full of narcissism?
There are good techies though, it's just that I get angrier and angrier the more YouTube recommends me these stupid videos. Ah, my chest feels lighter now.6 -
"What language should I learn?" Wellll.
[0]
43 PERCENT Of banking systems are built on COBOL
80 PERCENT Of in-person transactions use COBOL
95 PERCENT Of ATM swipes rely on COBOL code
220 BILLION Lines of COBOL in use today
"Experienced COBOL programmers can earn more than $100 an hour when they get called in to patch up glitches, rewrite coding manuals or make new systems work with old." [1]
Found this pretty interesting/crazy.
Source:
[0] http://tmsnrt.rs/2nMf18G
[1] http://reuters.com/article/...6 -
I absolutely love it when C# programmers who never learnt any language outside of their bubble discover C# is not the most feature up-to-date programming language. I am honestly annoyed by people who can read Java syntax but can't read ML syntax (because it is too 'clever' to be used in production). What a bunch of mediocre COBOL programmers!4
-
This was in 1st semester and our CSE course went under some major course revision. Python was to be taught in place of C. Now the professor we had was very famous and we were excited to be in his class. But little did we knew he had no knowledge of Python at all. He used to tell the lab assistant to teach.It was so bad that I lost all interest in programming!!
But we all studied python later in our winter holidays for further courses.
Next semester we had OOP and this is what happened:
1st lab:
Professor(different): I expect you have basic knowledge in programming so I have uploaded.
Every question was related to structures in C.
In the same semester, we had data structures where we were 'expected' to know C or C++.
Later we came to know that Python was not going to be of any use in any course ! First semester went into dustbin.
/*
It was pretty long rant. Hope you didn't get bored :P
*/ -
A: [technology] really sucks. For example, it does this thing where [shitty thing].
B: So just because [shitty thing], you throw out the entire [technology]?
No you dimwit. It's because of all the other things that led up to this point. This new bullshit is just being tossed on top of the mountain of other bullshit.
I'm not going to list off all 5000 reason why Cobol-interpreter-using-C-preprocessor is absolute garbage when "it's cobol implemented in the C preprocessor" is what I'm ranting about *now*.
Pedantic twats.1 -
People who think programming is just copy+paste, haven't programmed using COBOL, REXX or JCL (or similar "archaic" languages).
Best of luck finding all the answers on Google/SO. This is the world where RTFM is a daily task.
RTFM = Read The Fucking Manual4 -
i guess im learning COBOL now..
didn't even know, this language still exists, and is alive until the Lead of the Department came around and asked me if i know that language, because they have a potential customer Project.
Others said, i shouldn't do it, but i'm also curious.
At the very least i will check it out 🦕5 -
Stack Overflow people have profound buffallo bullcrap on their skulls, they are some software engineers who have fucked COBOL and BASIC, probably somewhere like NASA, just pondering out where someone post a question. They're probably some etilist cult banging a prostitute while delivering that awful downvote imitating the slap they give the chick during sex. They desire questions such as
"RANDOM_fuck_module_Abdul.method() not working in python" or "how to dock the dock by undocking" (tagged: AWS). Not things like "why does the audio tag not work in a PC but works in w3school tester?" or a genuine programming question. Fuck.
We don't tail recurse or loop abc for k in godfuck loops, huh? We make simple things as: a form, a http request to dell.
I hope there penises get rotten in the hell. Period.
this is just a part of SO.13 -
If languages had slogans...
1) Java -- Buy one get two for free on your delicious NPEs.
2) C -- I burn way too much calories talking, let's do some sign language. Now see over there... 👉
3) Python -- Missing semi-colon? Old method. Just add an extra space and watch the world burn.
4) C++ -- My ancestors made a lot of mistakes, let's fix it with more mistakes.
5) Go -- Meh. I can't believe Google can be this lazy with names.
6) Dart -- I'm the new famous.
7) PHP -- To hide your secrets. Call us on 0700 error_reporting(0)
8) JavaScript -- Asynchronous my ass!
9) Lua -- Beginners love us because arrays start at 1
10) Kotlin -- You heard right. Java is stupid!
11) Swift -- Ahhh... I'm tasty, I'm gonna die, someone please give me some memory.
12) COBOL -- I give jobs to the unemployed.
13) Rust -- I'm good at garbage collection, hence my name.
14) C# -- I am cross-platform because I see sharp.
15) VB -- 🙄
16) F# -- 😴8 -
I took part in the selections for the Italian Olympiad of Informatics. First question:
Preferred language?
1. C/C++
2. Pascal
What if I only knew Java, COBOL, or Python? It just seems like such a limiting thing, is it normal?
Does it happen in other countries too?6 -
Sooo cobol eeeh...?
Old legacy system still running ehh?
Eyes closed and hope for the best from management eh?
And now everybody needs them all, while simple ppl dont get their money managers just say sorry ?
Twas a timebomb and it will still be. Its hugely pathetic of those responsible to disregard their old systems and dont test them for the worst case.
Why am i trying here to deliver proper working systems with long term update schedules when ppl in charge suck with their responsibilities?3 -
CIA – Computer Industry Acronyms
CD-ROM: Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
PCMCIA: People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN: It Still Does Nothing
SCSI: System Can’t See It
MIPS: Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
DOS: Defunct Operating System
WINDOWS: Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
OS/2: Obsolete Soon, Too
PnP: Plug and Pray
APPLE: Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
IBM: I Blame Microsoft
MICROSOFT: Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
COBOL: Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language
LISP: Lots of Insipid and Stupid Parentheses
MACINTOSH: Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs
AAAAA: American Association Against Acronym Abuse.
WYSIWYMGIYRRLAAGW: What You See Is What You Might Get If You’re Really Really Lucky And All Goes Well.
Credit to: http://devtopics.com/best-programmi... -
What if. What if all the developer are just one developer. What if all the world is just a training setting for that single developer. All the developers are just manifestation of one single developer.
All the greatest hackers and the noon. Every developer In the world is you. You are all the developer. The one who codes in java python JavaScript. Heck cobol. It's you. What if all the developers are just one developer manifesting differently ?
(Inspired from similar story where all human in history is just one person manifesting into forms to prepare him for higher 'levels ')4 -
In my new job the main task of the team is to refactor 16 old java apps, when I was about to shot myself they told me I was going to another department.
Still have to deal with some old ass stuff(cobol and a few old Java apps) but it’s mainly new projects.
I guess there’s still a god above us.4 -
Just noticed a thread on r/programmerhumor about bank code intentionally adding delays with all these JavaScript code blocks of how it's adding sleep cycles in.
So I spent an hour reading the documentation and wrote up an over engineered solution in COBOL just to prove a point.2 -
Need some opinions.
Imagine you’ve got loads of .net + angular under your belt. Like 10+ years.
A new place wants good software engineers from any background but their main thing is Java. So for their new work you will probably be writing it in Java.
Would you turn it down because by this point your specialised in .net.
Or would you be more ‘easy-come-easy-go’ about it and happily learn Java (not too hard) and all the surrounding libraries, toolset (I suspect this is where the effort would be)
I’m kind of of the opinion that switching to a whole other ecosystem might set you back. If you had to put a label on it I would describe it as going from being a senior to a mid-senior.
As you would fall behind with .net but still be trying to up skill in the Java toolset.
And it does feel a bit like learning Java at this point is like learning cobol.
Is my thinking wrong?4 -
Cobol / Mainframe, create on your computer then ftp to server to compile and run (and hope it doesn't crash the cobol region due to infinite running) then ftp to get the output.
-
My LinkedIn profile lists quite a lot of languages and platforms, but I made sure to not include Ruby there, just because:
1. I never worked with Ruby
2. I never want to work with Ruby because I got fed up with the smugness of ruby developers back in the day so much that I made a promise to myself never to be one of them. Literally anything just not Ruby. I'll even take up COBOL if I have to, in order to avoid Ruby, unless I can justify it as a backup scripting language for small automation stuff where other languages would simply not work. Aaaanyway...
I get this message from a guy:
"""
Hey <Actual first name>,
You got recommended by a person, and judging by your profile you'd make an excellent fit for this company I'm representing who are the leaders in their field, bla bla bla more info on why company is the greatest in the world.
They need an experienced senior Ruby developer for their new web application bla bla bla.
"""
I wonder, if I committed to learn Ruby well enough to pass an interview, faked some Ruby experience in my CV, and they actually hired me, how long would it be until they hang that recruiter for not even reading the profiles of the people he's bothering with messages. -
Got a file with cobol data in it.. Also got thr structure to read it, but what the fuck is COMP-3? Any idea how I can decode this into a human readable format? 🤔😓🤓
-
My first job was through a technology "Graduate Training Program" at a large bank. We were sold on the job being told that there would be a month of corporate training before getting to work. You know, stuff like presentation skills and Myers Briggs and actual useful stuff. And yeah, they did have that for like two days of the month.
The rest was the most bullshit work to basically kiss-ass to upper management. Having to analyze their commercials and explain how amazing they were and why (they sucked). Explaining a portion of the business to upper management.. you know- the business they knew because they are executives in it- but it had to be "fun". We were stuck making board games and rap songs to these things to make an ass of ourselves in front of executives.
Then after that I was stuck working on VB6 programming with a Cobol mainframe backend. So fucking awful. -
Finishing up a two week, four person, project in COBOL. Wondering if the same could be done in Java by one person before lunch on one day.1
-
Company paying tons for retired old mainframe devs to come teach basic z/OS and to give a hands-on. Third try and they still sent a guy showing off their windows based mainframe replacements without terminal connections.
I set an pirated z/OS up and now I have to deal with 10 coworkers who apparently can't unpack a 7zip, follow basic instructions or failed to open the .torrent with files i distributed 14 days ago. Losing the will to live (in legacy tech)4 -
I’ve become so indecisive in terms of knowing what I want from my career.
All I know is what I don’t want (to end up a in management)
I’m definitely getting a new job and right now it looks like I’ve got 3 offers on the table
Option 1, a previous company I worked for. Still the same problems with the company there as before but the work was interesting and unusual. and my line manager was a good guy.
They have practically no legacy code.
Not much in the way of company benefits but they’re local and it would be nice to see friends again.
So feels like the pull to this is strong.
Option 2, a fully remote company that I’ve been referred to by an ex-workmate.
They’ve not even tech tested me because they’ve read my blogs and GitHub repos instead and said they’re impress. So just had a conversation with them. I feel honoured that they took the time to look at what I’ve done in my own time and use that in their decision.
Benefits are slightly better than option 1 (more hols)
But they’re using .net 6 and get a lot of heavy use on their system and have some big customers. I think the work is integrations to start with and moving services into docker and azure.
Option 3, even though I’ve got an offer from this one but they can’t actually explain the work until We can arrange a call next week (they recruit and then work out what team your in, but Christmas got in the way of me having a call with them straight away)
It’s working on government systems and .net is their least used stack so probably end up switching to Java. Maybe other tech stacks too.
This place has much better benefits than option 1 and 2 (more hols and more pension), but 2 days a week in office.
All of the above pay the same salary.
Having choice feels almost as bad as having no choice.
It’s doing my head in thinking about it , (even tho I might as well not think about it at all until the call with option 3 happens).
On the one hand with option 3, using a tech stack that’s new to me might be refreshing, as I’ve done .net for 10 years.
On the other hand I really like c# and I’m very good at it. So it feels a bit like I should be capitalising on that and using my experience to shape how the dev is done. Not sure I and I can do that with option 3, at least for a while.
C# feels like it’s moving forward nicely and I’m not sure I can say the same for Java or other languages.
I love programming and learning new stuff but so unable to let things go. It’s like I have a fear that c# will move on without me and I’ll end up turning into one of those devs whose skills are a decade out of date.
Maybe the early years of my career formed me in this way.
Early on I worked at a company where there was a high number of Cobol devs who thought they had a job for life.
But then redundancies came and many left. Of those who stayed they had to cross train to Java and they just couldn’t do it.
I don’t think the tech was hard for them, I think they were just so used to not learning that they could no longer adapt.
Think most of them ended up retiring after trying to learn Java for a few years.8 -
My path into development started with my dad. He was a COBOL programmer and would bring his work home to debug by hand. He would explain his thinking and programming concepts as he went through his code.
I then got into Basic, and Visual Basic 6.0 (right before .NET). In high school CS I and CS II consisted of VB.NET and Java, but it also solidified some foundational concepts I was missing; binary, hex, flow charts, etc.
After that though, everything else was self exploration and trial and error. It all came together. I love my path, and it brought me here to devRant via the programming friends I have made along the way. -
What's an "old language" that has had significant momentum, but has also had its day and really needs to just go away now and be replaced by something else? FORTRAN? COBOL? BASIC? Any others?12
-
Started with Basic back in the early '90s, then tried quickBasic that came with the new version of msdos.
Later in the college we learned Pascal, Cobol, C and a little C++.
The languages I'm writing nowadays I've learned as I went... Most of them script languages as perl, php, python and bash. And C/C++ occasionally.
And js too1 -
Entropy wins. More useless accumulated historical nonsense in each programming language. Complex software stacks impossible to reach the bottom. However C and C++ still there possibly even some Cobol and Fortran zombies. And we devs still writing our ifs and loops for that kind of legacy stuff.
-
I just downloaded devRant again after quite some time without it. I saw a post about devRant rubber ducks and wanted to get one myself but.... Where's COBOL? 😯8
-
Damn it, why I can't find the COBOL course by IBM?? It was supposed to go online this week in Coursera.8
-
I don't know what is going on where I live but in the past week I've interviewed for a job using Clarion (what) and COBOL
-
Working for a company using Cobol > CGI > PHP > MySQL > Django, and once again another custom rolled framework with no documentation in PHP. Basically no desire, haha.
-
You set a value to a variable at line 80. At line 237, you set the value again, calculated in the same way, with the same, untouched parameters. The variable isn't used at all anywhere between these two points...
If I have to do maintenance to your .net code, and can tell that not only did you learn on COBOL, but that you're a bad COBOL programer, Fuck You!2 -
Does anyone know where B, D language, Haskell, Scala, COBOL, Fortran and other unfamous languages are used? I know that Scala and Haskell are functional programming language but I don't know where it is useful and COBOL was used in US army but I never hear about them.3
-
Nothing better than Rust and LALRPOP. I've been trying to play with Bison and C++ for the whole quarantine and nothing would compile. I just sat for two days with Rust and LALRPOP and I was able to make a small interpreter that can make new variables, calculate simple expressions and print stuff. Like this:
var = 5 + 3;
print var;
var = 2 * var + 4;
var2 = 3 * var + 3 * (var + 4);
print var2 * var;
And all this in just two days. I have no Rust experience except for toying with it on an online playground. I have no LALRPOP nor parsing experience. Two days.
Now, it's not like I wouldn't be able to do this in C++ too if somebody told me how to. But nobody has. And the documentation online is gruesome. None of the bison example I found online could compile. This is why documentation matters people! Honestly, if there's one reason I think old projects die, it's because they ether don't update themselves OR they don't update their documentations. Look at the US government now, looking for COBOL programmers.4 -
2019 Recap: Quit studentjob. Got engineering degree, worked as a devops consultant, got a child, bought a house, started at new company as mainframe developer.
2020 goals: less cobol, more java, get courses for a long term goal of becoming an it-architect.2 -
When you need to upgrade an Oracle CC&B project on a minor version change and Eclipse shows ~1500 java.lang.ClassNotFound exceptions
Bonus points: when you need to upgrade a CC&B project with thousands of COBOL lines in its extensions to CC&B 2.5
-
I try to find new stuff which is related to what I already know or is close. I like learning new technologies and techniques 😄. By this I continuously gain more knowledge thereby making me a better developer.
-
NINE Methods _IN A ROW_ look like this. I can't bring myself to search for more. They are called 100+ times and after each call we check if they returned success.
VERIFY_XYZ SECTION.
V_010.
MOVE RETCODE$FAIL TO RET_CODE.
CONTINUE.
MOVE RETCODE$SUCCESS TO RET_CODE.
V_100.
V_EXIT.
EXIT. -
Another disaster of 2020 had struck.
The internet is fucked again. This time of a global scale. Did you grow a bit suspicious why everything takes more to load? USA is getting ddosed by china again... I get dns proube failed error on every website and things that work are as fast as that inter your company have hired for thag cobol project from 1876. I have a online test tomorrow, usa can you fucking get ddosed later?
Yep and the attack is currently shown on the famous ddos graph web site2 -
After a year and half of learning and working in web development I thought it would be a good choice to make a career move to learn COBOL. I'm now a mainframe programmer writing COBOL all day. The struggle is real folks.
Everything I learned GONE! -
Just got hired for an internship duing QA testing for an insurance companies software team. I've been told their systems run mostly Java, SQL, php, JavaScript, and a little bit of Cobol. Any advice, tips, or things to look out for?1
-
If IBM does not their new COBOL Devs to make the move to different fucking language then they are total idiot's.8
Top Tags
Weekly Rant
View