Just in case you didn’t know, the code is old, but the hardware still gets updates. And when it comes to batch transactions and network speed, mainframes still do the job reliably well. Plus, they are not easy to hack, because few understand them, not to mention the decades of security updates.
It hasn’t been done because that’s a great works project that’s on a scale you’re woefully ignorant to (this is an assumption on my part based on what I can grok of you based on your comments here).
I assure you there is a bevy of skilled developers who would love to modernize the systems they work on but the cost and level of effort is beyond what is politically viable.
If you changed your perspective from “it’s awful and bad and always will be” to “it’s awful and bad and we can make it better, how can I help” things will improve for everyone.
Mate, from reading the comments of this no-brains, he or she doesn’t even know how to program in a professional capacity, much less have even the slightest clue of the scope of such a project.
That one is literally a mindless Trump/Elon fan wading into waters way, WAY, WAY beyond his depth.
I guarantee you that there are no governments, banks, or businesses older than 15 years that aren’t running some old ass code that’s not getting replaced any time soon.
You shouldn’t be using cobol in 2025
There are tons of IT systems in the government that have been running the same programming for 30+ years but if it isn’t broke it doesn’t get touched.
Source: Use mainframe emulators often to perform routine tasks in government HR systems.
Yeah that doesn’t make it ok
Just in case you didn’t know, the code is old, but the hardware still gets updates. And when it comes to batch transactions and network speed, mainframes still do the job reliably well. Plus, they are not easy to hack, because few understand them, not to mention the decades of security updates.
The code may be old but the hardware gets updated. I don’t know if they’re using modern tools but the language also gets updated.
It alll comes down to budget: who wants to spend the money to modernize stuff that still works? Iss Musk willing to invest in that?
They would have to spend on new systems instead of giving tax breaks to corporate welfare queens and the landed gentry.
Good luck getting musk to pay to update the programs that most of the government uses.
These programs were written in COBOL, and they have had no reason to upgrade things that are still working.
Yeah, great. Is DOGE going to fix any of that?
so the huge legacy codebase should be ported to…
and who’s gonna do that? You?
The terrifying answer is that script kiddies will end up porting it to JavaScript and Electron and host it on AWS.
I wanted to write JavaScript first but decided against it :D
This hasn’t been done because no one can do it. It’s because the government sucks at this stuff
It hasn’t been done because that’s a great works project that’s on a scale you’re woefully ignorant to (this is an assumption on my part based on what I can grok of you based on your comments here).
I assure you there is a bevy of skilled developers who would love to modernize the systems they work on but the cost and level of effort is beyond what is politically viable.
If you changed your perspective from “it’s awful and bad and always will be” to “it’s awful and bad and we can make it better, how can I help” things will improve for everyone.
Mate, from reading the comments of this no-brains, he or she doesn’t even know how to program in a professional capacity, much less have even the slightest clue of the scope of such a project.
That one is literally a mindless Trump/Elon fan wading into waters way, WAY, WAY beyond his depth.
I guarantee you that there are no governments, banks, or businesses older than 15 years that aren’t running some old ass code that’s not getting replaced any time soon.
Lolololol tell that to literally every major bank, I’m sure they’ll get right on it just for you.