Comments on: MULTIPLY JOBS BY COBOL GIVING IT-JOB-SECURITY. http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2008/08/05/multiply-jobs-by-cobol-giving-it-job-security/ EBB is the ebiquity research group\\\'s blog at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). We focus on technologies that facilitate the design, implementation and control of distributed, intelligent information systems -- mobile and pervasive computing, ad hoc networking, multiagent systems, knowledge representation and reasoning, and the semantic web. As the tides of technology ebb and flow, we hope the good ideas wash up on our beach and the bad ones drift back out to sea. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:39:45 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Glen Parker http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2008/08/05/multiply-jobs-by-cobol-giving-it-job-security/comment-page-1/#comment-25139 Glen Parker Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:52:57 +0000 http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/?p=1580#comment-25139 I think the California controller, John Chiang, may be wrong about the involvement needed to issue the minimum wage paychecks. If my understanding is correct, this is only a one time shot and then those effected will be paid the dfference later on. Most payroll systems allow for a payroll advance. If the workers were to receive a payroll advancefor the amount of the minimum wage, the payroll program should be able to handle that without any programming changes at all. I may require qite a bit of clerk time to make the entries, or someone cojuld write a quick program to provide the input. As for no Cobol programmers out there any more, I think they are wrong. I retired from a Bank about 8 years ago and I saw no shortage of Cobol programmers then, and if we needed additional help, there were plenty of consulting firms around who could suplply more people as needed. I think the California controller, John Chiang, may be wrong about the involvement needed to issue the minimum wage paychecks. If my understanding is correct, this is only a one time shot and then those effected will be paid the dfference later on. Most payroll systems allow for a payroll advance. If the workers were to receive a payroll advancefor the amount of the minimum wage, the payroll program should be able to handle that without any programming changes at all. I may require qite a bit of clerk time to make the entries, or someone cojuld write a quick program to provide the input.

As for no Cobol programmers out there any more, I think they are wrong. I retired from a Bank about 8 years ago and I saw no shortage of Cobol programmers then, and if we needed additional help, there were plenty of consulting firms around who could suplply more people as needed.

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