The Age of COVID-19: Re-thinking COBOL

Lately I been playing around GNU/Linux distro called GamerOS. GamerOS is based on Arch Linux. However no Arch Linux knowledge is required to install or run GamerOS. It dose one thing very well: play pc games. In fact, that is all it does. There is no desktop environment only Steam Big Picture mode. GamerOS shows a lot of potential and takes over where SteamOS left off. More on that another time.

 

I don't know much about infectious diseases outbreaks, contagions or pandemics. But I do know about computer infrastructures. And I have talked about before about federal and state governments holding on to these old ideas when it comes to computing. This pandemic surprisingly has exposed a lot of cracks in our infrastructure to the general public. Sure most people knew about the lack of a government insurance that has led to many people being more susceptible to covid-19. However did you know that the reason why some claims are taking as long as 3 weeks to process is because of a mainframe computer that runs on a 60-year-old programming language called COBOL?

COBOL is mainly used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. To my dismay it is still widely used in legacy applications deployed on mainframe computers. I'm not a COBOL expert so I could not really discuss at length how it works. But here's what I do know with my limited knowledge. The way COBOL code is written also makes it hard to update. That is the main reason why I've always felt it should just be done away with. It's like that old revolutionary war era rifle, they are still capable of killing even today. However the weapons today will turn even a twelve-year-old into an efficient killing machine. 

For those who don't know this is how modern computing works: Today's computing languages break programs into chunks, each with a specific purpose. COBOL programmers often weaved everything together, which means code changes can damage or disable other parts of the program. So in other words it is unstructured and difficult-to-maintain source code. Plus COBOL was not designed for the internet. As recent as 2019 the U.S. Government Accountability Office  urged multiple agencies to modernize their technology. It's not just the COBOL code that needs updating, but also the mainframe systems that run the applications. To take on all this extra load the mainframe needs to be upgraded for more processor speed, more main memory and faster peripheral storage systems. And besides the average COBOL programmer is like 70, right?

I mean we wouldn't have games today like Xonotic, SuperTuxKart or left 4 Dead 2, if we were all still gaming on the nearly 50 year old, Magnavox Odyssey.