In this post, I warned about that you have to be nice to the IT folks since they have the "good" passwords (and can kill your business if they misuse them).
Well, now you know that if you don’t maintain your code systems (as in "hey, they work, they’re not broken, so leave them alone" or "it always worked so we never thought about them"), they can turn around and byte you. Especially if there is no one left that knows where the spaghetti code (code that has been changed / modified /played with so often that it is as twisted as a Gordian Knot).
From Slashdot:
"Last week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered a pay cut, to minimum wage of $6.55/hr, for 200,000 state workers — because a state budget hadn’t been approved yet. The state controller, who has opposed the pay cut on principle and legal grounds, now says the pay cut isn’t even feasible because the state’s payroll systems are so antiquated. He says it would take six months to go to minimum wage, and nine months more to restore salaries once a budget is passed. The system is based on COBOL, according to the Sacramento Bee, and the state hasn’t yet found the funds or resources, in ten years of trying, to upgrade it."
The article quotes a consultant on how hard it is to find COBOL programmers; he says you usually have to draw them out of retirement. Problem is, if there were any such folks on the employment rolls in California, Gov. Schwarzenegger fired them all last week, too.
10 years? Really! With all of the changes, at least at the Federal level, they haven’t had to touch it? Or are they running out of compliance?
COBOL is older (old?) nerd stuff. It works, but not flashy. Nothing that is "Web-by" or elicits a "Wow" factor. It just works in the back office stuff as it was intended to. The problem could be thought of as trying to find a typewriter mechanic – they just don’t stand around on the local corner anymore.
They will be able to find someone, but it will cost them. And with all systems that aren’t maintained, going cheap never is.
