#working of java program

[tea-with-eleni]

Okay I think I like raspberry pi. I think I like micro bit powered robots. It’s so much easier to learn how to make computers do bullshit things when I have a goal for an adorable tiny computer who is trying his best.

Also it’s really easy to win over staff on a technology when it is objectively adorable.

[projectbatman193]

Learning to code with Mimo has been quite fun, it's almost like a duolingo for coding, been ejoying it quite a bit and learning a lot.

[codingcorgi]

I did something nice for myself as a reward for finishing my work on time! I will have to say loops in Java are basically the same as C# which is nice. I made some fluffy chicken mushroom rice! I also put it in my small pumpkin bowl. I am going to work on my app this evening too!

[levelzeo]

If you don’t want to read a rant someone has about a stupid task they have for their coding job, feel free to skip over this post.

So.

My current job is to make pages for a program my team is creating. Specifically, I’m taking old pages and remaking them using newer, less outdated frameworks and services. For some pages it’s very simple. This is not one of them.

The current page I’m working on is actually 50+ pages in a trench coat, and each of them have their own unique combination of tabs and fields that the user can mess around with. Doing each of those individually would be a nightmare, but luckily, the original page is able to generate all 50 of its sub-pages through a single service. That service is 2k lines of code, but it’s not the worst thing in the world.

But as time goes on, and my coworkers and I make our way through this code, we realize whoever made this original page was a madman.

Fields get saved in strange ways. Dates that should be saved separately as numbers are instead combined into one singular string alongside other data for no good reason. (ex: “6/10 | 6/16 | false” yes with those “|” in between them, no I don’t understand why)

Meanwhile, it’s a 50/50 whether a dropdown comes with the list of options the user can select, or if the list was hardcoded into the UI.

But the thing that broke me came recently.

While testing, we found that 3 of the 50+ pages weren’t working right. Nothing about them stands out, there’s nothing unique to just these three, and they aren’t even next to each other. Why aren’t they working? Well, that’s because, FOR SOME REASON, these three pages aren’t included in that 2k line service I mentioned. For seemingly no reason, these three have their own service. A service, that is three times as long.

Three.

Times.

6k lines of code that need to be sorted through.

We don’t know why. Our best guess is that these three came first, but then someone else came in and made a “simpler” (but still insane) way to do the rest, and just forgot to include the first three in that.

I’ve been working on this page for months, and I fear what I might discover next.

[the-potato-beeper]

i'm poking around through RPG Maker MV's programming and... actually sort of understanding it? proud!!

[aspectpriority]

after some faffing about today i've gotten Tavros, Gamzee, and Kanaya's quirks all working just fine. these were a little harder because you can't just find and replace characters, which is how I've been doing it so far - you have to flip through the string and check what actually needs capitalising.

We've found a couple different examples for this sorta thing, one used character arrays and another used string builders - i'm not sure if one is better than the other? This kinda thing often bugs us a lot - we like to do things the "proper" way, but frankly, for what this is (a silly little baby's first java project) it literally doesn't Fucking matter. Maybe we'll get good enough to give a damn at some point? but for the time being, especially for something that no one Else is going to use, it's pretty inconsequential.

That said! we've got everyone from Aradia through to Terezi done now. Just over half way through! Isn't that neat!

[garden-eel-draws]

Ah, yes, calling a System function.

Also known as calling upon a wizard to use a tiny sliver of their vast, unknowable magicks to System.out.print()

[aria0fgold]

I've been grabbing random Shimeji that I stumble into which has customized animations to examine how the creators added to the code and I can't believe I'm lowkey relearning programming cuz of this.

[a-dash-in-the-middle]

I just realised how fucked up my schedule is gonna be next semester so please wish me luck...

[danideezvito]

Programming memories

I've been writing a little cli to quickly perform Wikipedia searches in Kotlin lately and it's had me thinking about my journey up to this point learning programming. Back in high school, 10th grade I signed up for an XHTML, CSS and JS class where I had the opportunity to get a little certification and just have 3 hours a day to learn about it. I was absolutely hooked. I remember I'd have a blast making these little websites but wanted to learn desktop development. Eventually that led me to python and i liked it but felt it was lacking, though lacking what I didn't know because I knew literally nothing at the time. I wanted to write a text rpg, and read that python wasn't a good fit for my task and I should try Java instead, so I did. I hated it. Despised it actually, coming from python and JavaScript it seemed way too verbose, and confusing. I found it asinine that i needed to import something just to get input from the keyboard (honestly, still find it a bit odd.) But bizarrely, despite not sticking with it, and despite learning several other languages- even quitting programming for years after- the way I think, the way I initially want to do things has always been very Java-like. It colored my thinking in such a profound way, I've always kinda wondered what it was. Eventually I began to try out every single programming language, and found that everything abstracted too much, was too slow for my liking, didn't have static typings, didn't have the option for dynamic typing. Finally i realized after jumping around, developing a crippling inability to actually finish a programming language that literally Java (or kotlin as now I found that fun, but worry about the implicit binding to intellij) was what I wanted in a lang all along.

The shit you get to thinking about debugging, huh?

[projectbatman193]

This is the very first program I've coded, and it's basically a D20 😊

[non-threatening-feminist-boy]

okay so i decided to finally start writing again by writing some fanfiction. But, me being me, what did i decide to use for that? Word? Perhaps google docs? Maybe even email drafts? Writing app on my phone??? Nope. (Okay kinda.)

My old Nokia N97

[haxpaxmisc]

this is my THIRD TIME trying to upload this ABC design i made, i am in super hell and can't tell u more than the fact that she's an old rave-scene glory who haxx

[sad--tree]

i need to do my java assignment. i need to start my java assignment. i need to open my java assignment and look at it. i need to do my java assignment. i need to do my java assignment. i need to complete to-dos in my java assignment. i need to do my java assignment.

(<- is too afraid and overwhelmed to write a single new line of code in the java assignment)

[pankiepoo]

Pankie's Fan Shimeji!

(ignore the terrible quality)

Installation instructions below!

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

(Computer only) Export the zip folder, download the latest Java, and then run the executable!

Right-click on Fan or the little program icon to prompt actions/change settings!

There's a readme for help with troubleshooting in case it doesn't work!

(Song - A Party Instrumental from Inanimate Insanity (sped up + pitched))

[mariacallous]

The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk.

The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.

Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits.

“Of course, one of the big risks is not underpayment or overpayment per se; [it’s also] not paying someone at all and not knowing about it. The invisible errors and omissions,” an SSA technologist tells WIRED.

The Social Security Administration did not immediately reply to WIRED’s request for comment.

SSA has been under increasing scrutiny from president Donald Trump’s administration. In February, Musk took aim at SSA, falsely claiming that the agency was rife with fraud. Specifically, Musk pointed to data he allegedly pulled from the system that showed 150-year-olds in the US were receiving benefits, something that isn’t actually happening. Over the last few weeks, following significant cuts to the agency by DOGE, SSA has suffered frequent website crashes and long wait times over the phone, The Washington Post reported this week.

This proposed migration isn’t the first time SSA has tried to move away from COBOL: In 2017, SSA announced a plan to receive hundreds of millions in funding to replace its core systems. The agency predicted that it would take around five years to modernize these systems. Because of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the agency pivoted away from this work to focus on more public-facing projects.

Like many legacy government IT systems, SSA systems contain code written in COBOL, a programming language created in part in the 1950s by computing pioneer Grace Hopper. The Defense Department essentially pressured private industry to use COBOL soon after its creation, spurring widespread adoption and making it one of the most widely used languages for mainframes, or computer systems that process and store large amounts of data quickly, by the 1970s. (At least one DOD-related website praising Hopper's accomplishments is no longer active, likely following the Trump administration’s DEI purge of military acknowledgements.)

As recently as 2016, SSA’s infrastructure contained more than 60 million lines of code written in COBOL, with millions more written in other legacy coding languages, the agency’s Office of the Inspector General found. In fact, SSA’s core programmatic systems and architecture haven’t been “substantially” updated since the 1980s when the agency developed its own database system called MADAM, or the Master Data Access Method, which was written in COBOL and Assembler, according to SSA’s 2017 modernization plan.

SSA’s core “logic” is also written largely in COBOL. This is the code that issues social security numbers, manages payments, and even calculates the total amount beneficiaries should receive for different services, a former senior SSA technologist who worked in the office of the chief information officer says. Even minor changes could result in cascading failures across programs.

“If you weren't worried about a whole bunch of people not getting benefits or getting the wrong benefits, or getting the wrong entitlements, or having to wait ages, then sure go ahead,” says Dan Hon, principal of Very Little Gravitas, a technology strategy consultancy that helps government modernize services, about completing such a migration in a short timeframe.

It’s unclear when exactly the code migration would start. A recent document circulated amongst SSA staff laying out the agency’s priorities through May does not mention it, instead naming other priorities like terminating “non-essential contracts” and adopting artificial intelligence to “augment” administrative and technical writing.

Earlier this month, WIRED reported that at least 10 DOGE operatives were currently working within SSA, including a number of young and inexperienced engineers like Luke Farritor and Ethan Shaotran. At the time, sources told WIRED that the DOGE operatives would focus on how people identify themselves to access their benefits online.

Sources within SSA expect the project to begin in earnest once DOGE identifies and marks remaining beneficiaries as deceased and connecting disparate agency databases. In a Thursday morning court filing, an affidavit from SSA acting administrator Leland Dudek said that at least two DOGE operatives are currently working on a project formally called the “Are You Alive Project,” targeting what these operatives believe to be improper payments and fraud within the agency’s system by calling individual beneficiaries. The agency is currently battling for sweeping access to SSA’s systems in court to finish this work. (Again, 150-year-olds are not collecting social security benefits. That specific age was likely a quirk of COBOL. It doesn’t include a date type, so dates are often coded to a specific reference point—May 20, 1875, the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mètre.)

In order to migrate all COBOL code into a more modern language within a few months, DOGE would likely need to employ some form of generative artificial intelligence to help translate the millions of lines of code, sources tell WIRED. “DOGE thinks if they can say they got rid of all the COBOL in months, then their way is the right way, and we all just suck for not breaking shit,” says the SSA technologist.

DOGE would also need to develop tests to ensure the new system’s outputs match the previous one. It would be difficult to resolve all of the possible edge cases over the course of several years, let alone months, adds the SSA technologist.

“This is an environment that is held together with bail wire and duct tape,” the former senior SSA technologist working in the office of the chief information officer tells WIRED. “The leaders need to understand that they’re dealing with a house of cards or Jenga. If they start pulling pieces out, which they’ve already stated they’re doing, things can break.”