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| Old programming language Cobol threatens global stability |
The United States has added COBOL programmers to indispensable listings in many countries for combating halo viruses, respirators, masks, and health care workers.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy previously invited volunteers who can program using this old computer programming language because many government systems still work on older central computers.
Governor Murphy told a news conference about the virus that many systems in New Jersey are very old. He said: "Our system is over 40 years old, and there are many cases of anatomy to know how we got here. We really need programmers who understand COBOL."
In Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly said the Labor Department is updating its system from Cobol to the new Corona virus.
Connecticut has also recognized that it is working to resolve a large number of unemployment claims through a 40-year-old system consisting of a COBOL programming computer and four other independent systems that the state works with, Maine, Rhode Island, Mississippi. The state and Oklahoma are jointly developing a new aid system that will not end until next year
The lack of COBOL programmers has also damaged New Jersey, and New Jersey faces a similar situation: 362,000 citizens have applied for unemployment benefits in the past two weeks, and the central computer has been unable to manage this amount for 40 years. Ask.
According to the National History Museum, the Cobol language, first developed in 1959, is still in use today.
Network security expert Joseph Steinberg said: "In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, it was a programming language that was used to create a large proportion of enterprise systems, but over time, programmers pulled it away."
According to the 2016 Government Accountability Office report, the U.S. federal government continues to use it through various agencies, including the Veterans Affairs Ministry and the Department of Justice and Social Security.
A report published by Reuters in 2017 showed that 220 billion lines of code are currently written in this language, with 43% of banking systems relying on this language and 95% of ATMs relying on Cobol. .
In addition, a report published by the Inspector General of the Ministry of Social Security in 2018 found that the government still runs more than 60 million lines of software in Cobol and millions of lines of software in other programming languages. traditional.