Re: Any comments? (Answers to Pete)

AMEN! Dang it I was interested in the first article then this became a
total bs session on religion - how does that happen? Can people let
religion aside for a minute and help a sister out ?

I like to kick it old school with COBOL, what's wrong with that? I
miss the good ole days, especially now. I work for a startup sponsored
by a big insurance company, and they transferred 5 of us mainframe
programmers (basically we came in as insurance company employees one
day, then the next we were told we were now working for a subsidiary -
congratulations! ) to help them design a web based system accessing a
database stored on a new offsite server. Well, that sucked because
none of us know jack about Windows networking, web development or
Oracle. The real jewel was that the managment in their wisdom let us
think we were migrating to a Unix server for a couple of months, which
would have been great because we've got Unix skills, and would be able
to convert our COBOL with microfocus and run some shell scripts and
such. But then a month ago we meet with this offsite hosting company
they hired, and we find out it is a Windows server that our director
decided on (it's cheaper - yay!). Great. So now we are trying to
figure out what kind of software we need to convert our COBOL programs
to work on a Windows Server. Our deadline is this summer, and they
still haven't ponied up the money for any of the software we suggested.
But they want the five of us to draw up system plans, timelines, meet
with users, negotiate with partners and do all that as well as learn
client server technology in the next 2 weeks. We have one dude who
actually has worked with Oracle & Java- and he knows what ASP is!
Fabulous. The other dude worked with VB and is a windows guy with
valuable experience - from the outside world! Personally I have
touched ten VB 6 programs so I guess they think I'm a guru. We are so
qualified to do this!

Sorry to go on and on but my team lead, manager, etc are still trying
to figure out what software we are going to have to learn on the fly.
The server hosting company is getting tens of thousands of dollars to
basically house 2 windows servers and occasional dusting - no support
or software (except they did buy a tape drive to read our old 3290
tapes, probably off ebay, which I am sure we will get billed 10,000 for
- I am in the wrong business in more ways than one here).

Do you guys think that we should just convert to VB and run some
vbscript (there is an Oracle database we also have to create, but thank
goodness I have a Oracle DBA buddy to help me since I am now the DBA as
well as a developer, and also project manager and Network Services
support.)
What generally is easier, from COBOL, would it be fujitsu cobol, cobol
..net or java or vb .net? I know I'm being a bit of a tool here but
when you are desperate for info it's hard to be eloquent.

If anybody has any ideas then I will personally get down on my knees
and pray for them to go to heaven. I am an old school gal being forced
to learn this new junk in 2-4 months on my own. I can't even get these
morons to buy me a book. At least they haven't restricted google yet!

Donald Tees wrote:
LX-i wrote:
Pete Dashwood wrote:

[much snippage - one > is Pete, two is me, etc.]

I don't think it's insecurity at all - it's just that, because He is
Who He is, He demands it.


That is my point, Daniel. Demanding it is not the action of one who
understands real power. You don't demand respect, you earn it.


Sure, we as people feel that way - but, then again, we aren't God. If
you are the absolute, one and only Creator of the Universe, aren't you
entitled to demand respect if your uppity creations don't give it on
their own?

Back to Jesus - He was conceived by the Holy Spirit inside a virgin -
so, although He was human in form, He did *not* have the sin nature
that all other men (as in "mankind") are born with. So, yes - He
didn't sleep with Mary Magdalene, or lie to his parents, or play
hooky from school, or steal apples.


Then he was not a man, or human in any way. This is the silliest damned
disscussion I have ever read on usenet. Says a lot for how obsolete
Cobol has become too. *Anything* can be rationalized if you work at it
long enough and have been brainwashed enough.

Perhaps the new motto should be "Cobol, as obsolete as the bible".

Donald

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