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from the COBOL-is-often-fractionally-better dept.
https://medium.com/@bellmar/is-cobol-holding-you-hostage-with-math-5498c0eb428b
Face it: nobody likes fractions, not even computers.
When we talk about COBOL the first question on everyone's mind is always Why are we still using it in so many critical places? Banks are still running COBOL, close to 7% of the GDP is dependent on COBOL in the form of payments from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, The IRS famously still uses COBOL, airlines still use COBOL (Adam Fletcher dropped my favorite fun fact on this topic in his Systems We Love talk: the reservation number on your ticket used to be just a pointer), lots of critical infrastructure both in the private and public sector still runs on COBOL.
Why?
The traditional answer is deeply cynical. Organizations are lazy, incompetent, stupid. They are cheap: unwilling to invest the money needed upfront to rewrite the whole system in something modern. Overall we assume that the reason so much of civil society runs on COBOL is a combination of inertia and shortsightedness. And certainly there is a little truth there. Rewriting a mass of spaghetti code is no small task. It is expensive. It is difficult. And if the existing software seems to be working fine there might be little incentive to invest in the project.
But back when I was working with the IRS the old COBOL developers used to tell me: "We tried to rewrite the code in Java and Java couldn't do the calculations right."
[Ed note: The referenced article is extremely readable and clearly explains the differences between floating-point and fixed-point math, as well as providing an example and explanation that clearly shows the tradeoffs.]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @02:23PM (4 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday September 16 2019, @05:27PM
I was just about to post that myself. It's well worth a watch.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 16 2019, @05:38PM (1 child)
God I hate argumentum ad Youtubum.
Maybe use your words, too. Or at least tell us what you are linking to.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Common Joe on Tuesday September 17 2019, @08:50AM
Fully agree, but I watched the video, so I can summarize for everyone.
In short, toaster design from 1948 cooks toast by measuring how well cooked the toast is. There is no timer like the modern toasters have. It also cooks is in near absolute silence; it does not come up with a pop like a modern day toaster. There is no lever to push the bread down. It goes down automatically and it comes up automatically. No computers; just heating elements, levers, bi-metal thermostats, and lots of cleverness. There are some gotchas like non-grounded wiring and the outside gets really hot. He explains in detail how the toaster works and how improvements could be made to bring it up to modern day options and safety.
And I can personally vouch for this authenticity. My grandfather had one of these and I used it. I wouldn't get as excited about it as this guy does, but he lays out some really good points. And as far as how silent it is? I barely heard anything except the expansion of the metal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @09:12PM
"You bought the wrong TV, silly-head!" [youtube.com]