Next you’ll be seeing bs gaslighting articles saying “American carmakers are being driven to bankruptcy thanks to millenials’ changing preferences”

why do we insist on giving this guy so much free advertising? move on already lol

i don’t doubt that linux has its uses and command-line is powerful. What I’m saying is >80% of users only know how to use a GUI, and that is why linux won’t go mainstream without having a GUI for everything user-facing.

I haven’t seen any ads, so my feelings about Windows might change at some point. But I’ve tried linux in the past, and there’s a reason why it just doesn’t get as much adoption.

First of all, linux seems to be built around the command line. I hate using the command line, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Everytime there’s something to troubleshoot I have to figure out command line inputs and outputs.

Second, the annoying issues with windows are annoying, but I’ve learnt to figure it out. No, I don’t want to set as default, no I don’t want to send data, no i don’t want to create a MS account. Even if I didn’t figure it out, I can still change it later - sending data is annoying af and i don’t like it, but it doesn’t stop me from doing something. On the other hand, i encounter issues with linux that stop me from actually using the OS all the time. Everytime I do, I have to post in forums asking for help, wait 12-36 hours while using an alternate OS/workaround, and dread the inevitable use of command-line that follows.

Most cobol systems have more code that doesn’t do anything vs code that actually does something.

What values do variables ROBERT1, ROBERT2 and ROBERT3 hold? Whatever ROBERT wanted.

And when that system is storing high-risk and/or sensitive data, do you really want to be the person who deletes code that you think “actually does nothing”, only to find out it somehow stopped another portion of code from breaking?

The reason why these things still exist is business laziness. They don’t know and don’t care what cobol is or isn’t doing.

That’s the thing - tor a risk-averse industry (most companies running COBOL systems belong here), being the guy who architected the move away from COBOL is a high-risk, high-stress job with little immediate rewards. At best, the move goes seamlessly, and management knows you as “the guy who updated our OS or something and saved us some money but took a few years to do it, while Bob updated our HR system and saved a bunch of money in 1 year”. At worst, you accidentally break something, and now you have a fiasco on your hands.

don’t you know, apple invented wireless charging!

It’s never been a technical reason, it’s the fact that most systems still running on COBOL are live, can’t be easily paused, and there’s an extremely high risk of enormous consequences for failure. Banks are a great example of this - hundreds of thousands of transactions per hour (or more), you can’t easily create a backup because even while you’re backing up more business logic and more records are being created, you can’t just tell people “hey we’re shutting off our system for 2 months, come back and get your money later”, and if you fuck up during the migration and rectify it within in hour, you would have caused hundreds/thousands of people to lose some money, and god forbid there was one unlucky SOB who tried to transfer their life savings during that one hour.

And don’t forget the testing that needs to be done - you can’t even have an undeclared variable that somehow causes an overflow error when a user with a specific attribute deposits a specific amount of money in a specific branch code when Venus and Mars are aligned on a Tuesday.

That doesn’t sound right at all. How could the amount of COBOL code in use quadruple at a time when everyone is trying to phase it out?

Because why they’re trying, they need to keep adding business logic to it constantly. Spaghetti code on top of spaghetti code.

Not a cobol professional but i know companies that have tried (and failed) to migrate from cobol to java because of the enormously high stakes involved (usually financial).

LLMs can speed up the process, but ultimately nobody is going to just say “yes, let’s accept all suggested changes the LLM makes”. The risk appetite of companies won’t change because of LLMs.

I’d rather have a system that’s compatible with both apple and android phones. A car is supposed to last decades; it’s the absolute last place I want a walled garden.

if someone offers you $200k for a 2020 Toyota Camry would you sell it?

He was doing so well as the world’s capitalist hero right up to the point where he called that British diver involved in the Thai cave rescue a pedo because people who were more experienced than him told him that his harebrained idea wouldn’t work.

This is commendable, but is 7 years really necessary? I think 5 years is plenty long before phones get outdated.

How do you know this?

bunch of downvotes with no comments? interesting.

“vandalism” is really stretching it.

Good luck on your medieval battle reënactment or orgy.

Could be both at once.

I don’t have anything to add, I’m just planting my flag here so I can say I was here at the beginnings of lemmylore.

Here, have a cat picture as an offering: