Alt US Digital Service @altusds.altgov.info · Apr 27 We’ve modernized legacy government systems. We know what it takes. DOGE’s plan to migrate SSA’s COBOL systems without understanding is a disaster waiting to happen. Here’s why DOGE will fail — and why it matters. 🔗 https://www.wethebuilders.org/posts/what-it-really-takes-to-migrate-cobol
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COBOL programmer here. The article is spot on. There is no way to cleanly covert that system to a modern language without extensive testing and planning for recovery after inevitable failures occur.
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I began my programming career on COBOL for a bank in ‘73. Such code has been denigrated by newbies wanting to convert it every time a new trendy language came out. It works. Leave it alone unless you’re able to do it right. DOGE is definitely not.
Really appreciate yall staying on top of things and trying your best to draw attention. Power accumulates in the minutiae
“fail”? I think they’ll succeed in doing exactly what they intend to do.
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i blame the death of minicomputers teach these devils!
All of COBOL developers at SSA knew this was going to be a disaster!
Understanding the current system is step1! Better still, why is anyone touching it to begin with?! Stupid doge and the evil muskrat have no intention of fixing anything or understanding it and no plan to find fraud or waste. They want another data source, period.
This is what my youngest brother does for a living, first in the military then the private sector at defense contractors. It's not easy work, the people who do it are inching towards retirement, there's no one to replace them.
They've a SNOBOL's chance in hell. They can play around on their own dev boxes to try replicating the functionality as long as they leave the old system running 'til they've given up. I mean, succeeded, ha ha.
The purpose may be to fail.
Just hope there is a full backup
When I saw they were thinking about this, my immediate thought was, "This is the stupidest thing I've heard in my entire career, including Clippy and Windows ME." The staggering arrogance to think that you know more than the hundreds of amazing technologists who have studied this problem.
This post was a collaboration between We the Builders and @alt18f.bsky.social and many mainframe experts from across govt
I'm terrified.
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Brilliant and completely understandable. DOGE bros will destroy basic services because they know nothing about the complexity of government and the systems that have successfully served the work and the public for years
"To modernize a system, you have to understand it"
Bingo