Technology

COBOL

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I don’t get why people hate the COBOL programming language so much. It might be old but so is the C language and SQL queries but neither of them is called obsolete. COBOL has some advantages in the office environment – it’s very easy to read and understand and all of data storage routines are up front. Plus usually each part of a COBOL program is quite simple – far less complicated than the casts, pointers and direct memory access functions in C – and much less prone to programming mistakes.

Knowing Coding is Important.

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In the modern era, it’s important that everybody know how to do a little computer programming. Not an expert on every langauge, but basic profinency on the concepts behind computing coding can make individuals much more productive. It’s hard to describe how many times before, I’ve used little bits of code to make my life better, to automate processes, to find solutions to problems that nobody else has addressed.

NYS Population by Area Code

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Each area code in NY State has a little over 1 million residents outside of New York City, due to most of state traditionally having 7-digit dialing.

While in theory, within a area code can have 10 million numbers, there are restrictions on numbers that can be used in North American Plan, which gets you down to 7.9 million numbers. It wouldn’t work for example to give somebody the number 911-5424.

But it’s actually much less then 7.9 million numbers per area code, because they allocate numbers out of local exchanges, and many numbers remain unallocated but in ownership of local exchanges and carriers.

NYS Population by Area Code
Except for New York City-area codes, most areas codes in NYS have had between 1 to 1.5 million residents.
Area Codes Population
212, 332, 646, 917 1,576,574
315, 680 1,439,945
347, 718, 917, 929 7,070,371
516 1,367,966
518, 838 1,413,733
585 1,093,867
607 750,511
631, 934 1,485,367
716 1,371,842
845 1,398,633
914 1,002,679
Andy Arthur, 3/30/23
Source: Area Code Map, 2020 US Census Tracts.

I am a proponent of source-separated data 🔢

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Just because a field exists, doesn’t mean you should dump whatever crap fits in there without rhythm or reason. But maybe that’s the American-way — it’s the same kind of shit that landfill and sewage treatment plant operators deal with all of the time — the idea that if it fits, it ships, no matter what it is. The obnoxious things one has to deal with as the Data Services Director, lol.