>Just thought I'd ask you more knowledgeable programmers...
>
>What's the big deal about upgrading Year 2000 programs?  It seems pretty
>simple to me.  Just use a search and replace on any source code, find the
>relevant routines, and fix them.  Even better, just stick in a jump to a
>glue routine to deal with various aspects of the problem.  I don't know
>COBOL, but it can't be that much different from BASIC, C, or Pascal.
>
>I probably sound incredibly naive, but I'm curious because many companies
>and bureaucracies have a tendency to work hard instead of work smart.
>
>____________
>Mark Goodes (Toronto, Canada)
>Much better at "OOPS!" programming than OOP programming.

My current (optimistic, huh) girlfriend's dad does COBOL programming, and I
asked him the same thing. It isn't as simple as that. There is a lot of
code that has to be changed because the data fields have to be changed as
well. That is, and I have the byte values wrong most likely; but for
illustration: an 8 byte field now has to be changed to a 12 byte field (or
more), then the code that parses those fields has to be changed to look for
the data in all the new spots etc. Now multiply all that across a lot of
functions in a  lot of complex programs written many many years ago, and it
turns out to be a little more difficult than a find and replace. Then the
databases have to be changed too, and all the old records. COBOL is a
somewhat funky language (but interesting), however I am glad I don't use it
anymore. But I learned it in the punch card days.

COBOL programmers can make a lot of dough right now though. :)

Robert Covington