Proponents of Agile often ridicule the Department of Defense (DOD) and its MIL-STD-2167 software methodology as stodgy and slow. Though the standard does set forth rigorous documentation standards, and these documentation artifacts are based upon the classical Waterfall stages of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), the narrative within MIL-STD-2167 is quite explicit that the process must be iterative and incremental, two basic tenets for which A…

In this 1970 paper, presented at the Western Conference of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1970, author Winston Royce sets forth the development steps that came to be known as Waterfall.  Unfortunately, it was a "straw man" version of Waterfall in his Figure 2, a version without iteration and feedback loops, that came to be popularized as "Waterfall". Royce himself was quite emphatic in his graphical portrayal of "modifie…

Humorously titled, this short paper offers some comparisons between CoBOL and Java. The conclusion is especially apt: "When it comes down to the question of which will best survive, the bottom line is that COBOL can be much more easily enhanced to include web features than Java can be enhanced to handle records. Adding web routines to COBOL is being done; adding record handling to Java is not and cannot be done, without a major change to Java's restrict…

Fact #30: "CoBOL is a very bad language, but all the others for business data processing are so much worse."

Robert Glass, notable IT author and contributor to the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), waxes insightfully into our love/hate relationship with CoBOL, delving into the differences between domain specific and domain independent languages. In the end, his conclusion: "The r…

A presentation on Integration Testing - how is it different from white box testing and black box testing? When should you use it? What are some perspectives, techniques, and strategies for performing integration testing?

A presentation that poses the question: Do the classical software development methods have relevance in an Agile world? The answer is Yes, if incorporated within a Unitary approach which can apply to both Classical and Agile.

A presentation by Clabby Analytics. Shows how the distributed systems management model is broken (add capacity = add people). How to fix this broken model using IT service management and emulating what mainframe managers are doing today.

An interesting exchange between the Inspector General's office on the Social Security Agency's use of CoBOL, its increasing use of Java, and its modernization efforts.  The facts presented as context are as important as the recommendations and conclusions, and underscore the importance of CoBOL to the financial industry. Also interesting is how the SSA's annual budget of $100M for operation and maintance for 60 million lines of code of CoBOL compares fa…

Why does the Social Security Agency embrace Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a key component of its IT strategy through 2016? It is because "SOA is an IT architectural approach that makes use of reusable components or services...Our WebSphere/CICS model supports WebSphere application design and its interface with CICS, allowing us to leverage decades of proven, optimized software while modernizing the user interfaces from outdated 'green screens'…

Why does the Social Security Agency continue to embrace  CoBOL? In its 2012-2016 Strategic Plan, it states:
"COBOL has served SSA and similar large transactional processing organizations well for over 40 years; COBOL's longevity is a distinct advantage for us, given the support and stability of the product."

Proponents of Agile often ridicule the Department of Defense (DOD) and its MIL-STD-2167 software methodology as stodgy and slow. Though the standard does set forth rigorous documentation standards, and these documentation artifacts are based upon the classical Waterfall stages of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), the narrative within MIL-STD-2167 is quite explicit that the process must be iterative and incremental, two basic tenets for which A…

In this 1970 paper, presented at the Western Conference of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1970, author Winston Royce sets forth the development steps that came to be known as Waterfall.  Unfortunately, it was a "straw man" version of Waterfall in his Figure 2, a version without iteration and feedback loops, that came to be popularized as "Waterfall". Royce himself was quite emphatic in his graphical portrayal of "modifie…

Humorously titled, this short paper offers some comparisons between CoBOL and Java. The conclusion is especially apt: "When it comes down to the question of which will best survive, the bottom line is that COBOL can be much more easily enhanced to include web features than Java can be enhanced to handle records. Adding web routines to COBOL is being done; adding record handling to Java is not and cannot be done, without a major change to Java's restrict…

Fact #30: "CoBOL is a very bad language, but all the others for business data processing are so much worse."

Robert Glass, notable IT author and contributor to the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), waxes insightfully into our love/hate relationship with CoBOL, delving into the differences between domain specific and domain independent languages. In the end, his conclusion: "The r…

A presentation on Integration Testing - how is it different from white box testing and black box testing? When should you use it? What are some perspectives, techniques, and strategies for performing integration testing?

A presentation that poses the question: Do the classical software development methods have relevance in an Agile world? The answer is Yes, if incorporated within a Unitary approach which can apply to both Classical and Agile.

A presentation by Clabby Analytics. Shows how the distributed systems management model is broken (add capacity = add people). How to fix this broken model using IT service management and emulating what mainframe managers are doing today.

An interesting exchange between the Inspector General's office on the Social Security Agency's use of CoBOL, its increasing use of Java, and its modernization efforts.  The facts presented as context are as important as the recommendations and conclusions, and underscore the importance of CoBOL to the financial industry. Also interesting is how the SSA's annual budget of $100M for operation and maintance for 60 million lines of code of CoBOL compares fa…

Why does the Social Security Agency embrace Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a key component of its IT strategy through 2016? It is because "SOA is an IT architectural approach that makes use of reusable components or services...Our WebSphere/CICS model supports WebSphere application design and its interface with CICS, allowing us to leverage decades of proven, optimized software while modernizing the user interfaces from outdated 'green screens'…

Why does the Social Security Agency continue to embrace  CoBOL? In its 2012-2016 Strategic Plan, it states:
"COBOL has served SSA and similar large transactional processing organizations well for over 40 years; COBOL's longevity is a distinct advantage for us, given the support and stability of the product."