The federal government is rethinking OMB Circular A-76, which historically has treated engineering as "commercial activity" to be outsourced, including core custom software, fueling sole-source capture and contractor dependence. Based on recent comments from Scott Kupor at the Office of Personnel Management, OMB is…
Generative and agentic AI applied to mainframe COBOL modernization is one of the most underrated shifts in the software industry. It's been about a decade since I last worked with IBM mainframes, so I was excited to join IBM zDay 2025 and see what's new. COBOL Continues to Evolve COBOL, like C and C++, continues to…
I've heard LLMs brought up in the context of legacy code modernization. Here are some lessons learned I've had digging into using agentic coding techniques with Fixed Format COBOL on the Exercism COBOL track. My Approach When working through the track, I basically did the Easy difficulty problems by hand with LLMs…
Wanted to give an update since it's been about a month since I started casually exploring post-sabbatical job opportunities. Essentially, I've learned that I'm very picky, and the market is very light on opportunity. This is a rough combo! I've decided to pause the search, extend my sabbatical, and spend more time on…
I've come to believe that calling yourself a "systems programmer" or "systems hacker" is maladaptive for career planning. With rare exceptions, people in industry who write "systems code" are really specialists: avionics, automotive, audio, CUDA, Linux kernel, Windows drivers, games, CNO, endpoint, etc. Your economic…
After a pretty intense slog, I've made it through Coplien's Advanced C++ book from 1992. This has likely been the most difficult C++ book I've ever read, especially compared to some of the easy-breezy golden oldie books like "Ruminations on C++" I've been going through recently. I had to reread chapters and noodle on…
I'm taking some flak for having worked at CrowdStrike. It's understandable that folks feel this way. The outage was serious and historic. My wife's medical clinic couldn't access EMRs for a week. I asked to help her clinic, but she was worried about her coworkers knowing that I worked there. Many others suffered like…
Motivation American Programmers currently have a lot of anxiety about LLM-related job loss and a recent resurgence of job offshoring. In many ways, this environment is very similar to the early 1990s, when pundits argued that special CASE tools would generate source code from diagrams and the industry was worried…
Computer programmers on the cusp of the Generative AI revolution are in a position eerily similar to that of data processing professionals at the dawn of the timesharing revolution . A Flashback to the 1960s In the early days of computing, programmers encoded instructions onto punched cards and handed them off to a…
Hard to believe, but this year marks the 20th anniversary of iTunes podcasts. It took decades, but after the "podcast election," one thing is undeniable: authentic human voices—recorded cheaply and distributed freely—have reshaped society. From an internet history perspective, podcasts are often seen as an extension…
Sally: Daddy, Daddy! What's a programmer? Dad: Ah, Sally, that's an old-fashioned word for a job people used to have. Your great-uncle Steve was a programmer, and back then, it was one of the most important jobs in the world. Sally: Really? What did Great-Uncle Steve do? Dad: Well, you know how you can talk to Eliza…
It’s getting popular to discuss burnout, which is great! It’s a conversation we need to have to counteract the self-promotional hustleporn that over-emphasize unhealthy work habits and suggests that success is contingent on sacrificing wellbeing. That ideology is the road to burnout. However, as our society has…
As I've gotten older and gained perspective on my life, I've concluded that many aspects of my personality and career have been broadly shaped by the era, location, and community of my childhood. In this blog series, "How I got Here," I plan to retrospect on a few different periods of my life and some of their lasting…
As I've gotten older and gained perspective on my life, I've concluded that many aspects of my personality and career have been broadly shaped by the era, location, and community of my childhood. In this blog series, "How I got Here," I plan to retrospect on a few different periods of my life and some of their lasting…
After a decade of career compromises, I'm finally following my passions Ideally, when someone graduates from college, they should understand their interests and aspirations and map that to a career that the economy can support. For the lucky ones, this happens early and painlessly, and the road to adulthood is a…
Come this way, honored Odysseus... and stay your ship, so that you can listen here to our singing; for no one else has ever sailed past this place in his black ship until he has listened to the honey-sweet voice that issues from our lips; then goes on, well-pleased, knowing more than ever he did; for we know…
Yesterday, some of my colleagues in Operation Code 's Slack channel were expressing some concerns about outsourcing and the impact that this might have on their careers. Given all of the election season rhetoric about American jobs, this is pretty understandable. Realistically, this is also an irreversible trend…
Thanks to organizations such as Code for America , the techie community is increasingly starting to think about ways to leverage their engineering skills in volunteer public service projects. I seriously applaud these efforts! However, I think that it's a mistake to completely concentrate our efforts on municipalities…
Praise to God for his many blessings! I have so much to be thankful for. Firstly, I was able to survive my 15 credit hour semester at IIT with a pretty respectable GPA and a published paper. My research on the cyber security loopholes in UAVs actually turned out to be a good product. Carnegie Mellon decided to publish…
It’s difficult to believe, but I am now working through Midterms week of my first of two semesters for my Masters of IT Management program. Glancing back at my blog, I see that my last post on December 12th essentially lamented the fact that I needed to return to school. To bring you all up to speed, after having a…
As many of you know, I have been pretty hesitant to go back to school. It’s been nearly two years since I’ve had a traditional paycheck. This is not to imply that Georgetown University was not a lot of work (indeed it was) or that I do not appreciate fellowship / GI Bill stipends (indeed I do). It is just that I have…
This morning was my Rite of Acceptance into the Roman Catholic church. For those unfamiliar with the process, Wikipedia provides a reasonable explanation of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults . Essentially, I have now completed the first phase of being formally welcomed into the St. Edmund's parish community.…
I am currently working through three career books. So You Majored in What? is more-or-less a guide for humanities majors trying to figure out how to make their interests and coursework (seem) relevant to real-work jobs. What Color Is Your Parachute? is the perennial classic. The Pathfinder is the book that seems to…
I thought that it would be a useful exercise to publish my thoughts as I work towards getting to know myself a bit better. I am a recently-married West Point graduate that was medically retired from the US Army in December 2008 after a brief 18 month stint as an Army Lieutenant. I had been in a PhD program for History…