https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/
For reference, SSA has roughly twice as many lines of code written in COBOL as the Linux kernel has lines of code written in C.
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/
For reference, SSA has roughly twice as many lines of code written in COBOL as the Linux kernel has lines of code written in C.
I’m part of a project that does something extremely close to this in Germany. After two or three years we’ve barely scratched the surface. The complexity of such a system with the wide range of rules, regulations and best practices is mind bogging. Just reverse engineering the legacy system alone takes years.
Almost a century of history is coded into this system, it’s ridiculous that they think they can just rewrite it.
Oh, it can be rewritten and it should be. But it’s a very time consuming and expensive process. It may take a long time to amortize indirectly though a system that is more stable, easier to maintain, adapt to new laws, and requires less effort to use and operate. It’s not a quick win and not a win in the time frame of one administration - which is why it’s usually not considered a high priority.
I meant DOGE, they said they’d do it in 3 months or whatever it was. I’m sure you’re project will be better managed.
I don’t envy you. I learned cool in university and vowed to never touch it again. Without going into too much detail, what are some of the common problems?