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Ask HN: Any active COBOL devs here? What are you working on?

234 points _false | 3 comments | 18 Jul 25 13:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.878s | source

COBOL legacy systems in finance and government are somewhat of a meme. However, I've never actually met a single person who's day job is to maintain one. I'd be curious to learn what systems are you working on?
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actionfromafar ◴[18 Jul 25 13:27 UTC] No.44604424[source]▶
Maybe the COBOL devs aren’t here.
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1. zoom6628 ◴[18 Jul 25 14:03 UTC] No.44604749[source]▶
Ex COBOL dev here. Started at NCR on COBOL for minis and mainframes. Then built stuff on Wang VS COBOL for ERP systems until 93. Quite a few other languages since then but been a Product Manager for past 20+ years.
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2. jmclnx ◴[18 Jul 25 14:18 UTC] No.44604901[source]▶
Same here, I worked on Wang VS COBOL too. IMO, it had the best TUI Screen generation Tools I have ever seen.

Towards the end, I worked on a project to port Wang VS OS and its COBOL to AIX. I was tasked finding issues with COBOL Programs we had on the VS. It was a good environment, but Wang went CPT 11 before it was ready :) It was rather close to being complete.

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3. glaucon ◴[19 Jul 25 07:43 UTC] No.44613416[source]▶
I worked on Wang VS COBOL too, great environment. Also worked on Wang PACE, their 4GL/RDBMS, the people who developed that stuff did a great job.