Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
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Re: Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
#2Re: Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
#3Well, Indian offshore companies have been training many COBOL guys since Y2K. These days, most of the SAP related jobs are outsourced to India. How can one expect that the same fate won't befall those who want to master COBOL now?
How about salaries?
Re: Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
#4I’m curious why there aren’t more x -> x conversion/adapter tools available. Most languages have the same core data models/abstract concepts, if there really is an enterprise/business demand for a product, usually some company would come up with a solution. Personally I’m curious about COBOL and learning from it’s design, but I’m intrigued by this question in general.
Re: Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
#5> The problem is that Cobol isn’t popular with new programmers.
Enough with the COBOL shortage myth. Don't be fooled, not being popular is not the problem. The problem is COBOL jobs aren't competitive, they often even pay worse than other tech jobs. That's why they are either being outsourced or offered to 60 year olds in their spare time. (So arguably they're not that mission-critical, either.)
But then who is writing articles with a false premise and why? Why would a news outlet (and I use that term loosely) even feature an article that ostensibly is to get more programmers to do COBOL cheaper? I don't even understand the agenda here - is there some kind of meta-game? The best I can think of is they're hedging their bets for when a bank fucks up, but even that seems pathetic. Maybe it's just COBOL turns out to be great clickbait for programmers.
Re: Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
#6I’m not seeing salaries...
Re: Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
#7I’m curious why there aren’t more x -> x conversion/adapter tools available. Most languages have the same core data models/abstract concepts, if there really is an enterprise/business demand for a product, usually some company would come up with a solution. Personally I’m curious about COBOL and learning from it’s design, but I’m intrigued by this question in general.
Hi! First post on here.
The conversion/adapter tools exists. It's not a technical issue.
The problem is that cobol applications are normally monolithic, and a migration to another system represents an huge risk because: 1) you migrate like a Big Bang migration, or; 2) you migrate step by step.
Imagine a bank with applications running at 30 or 40 years without problems... Nobody in his perfect judgment will accept to have a Big Bang migration. The risk is too high.
For migrating step by step, you must have a good bussiness case (it must compensate the risk), opportunity (you must be able to keep working in the Bussiness As Usual) and you must have the right people (people that have the knowledge in organization). If you don't have this three things it will be very hard to migrate Cobol to another language/platform.
Usually Cobol is used in mainframe, so the right aproach (with less risk) IMHO is to migrate first COBOL from z/os to a Cobol in another platform (windows/*nux whatever), and then migrate Cobol gradually to another language.
Re: Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
#8There have been enough of these stories over the years that literally the only item of interest is likely to be the author's bio:
Max Colchester is a U.K. banking correspondent for the WSJ in London. Previously WSJ correspondent in Paris covering fashion, nuclear energy and politics. He is @MaximColch on Twitter.
So the main thing is, the author - because of his background - likely has no idea that this is a recurring theme over decades, that the world nevertheless hasn't run out of COBOL programmers, and that it's an IT job companies today are as likely to outsource to the lowest bidder as any other job (whether that's a good idea or not).
Re: Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
#9> The problem is that Cobol isn’t popular with new programmers. Enough with the COBOL shortage myth. Don't be fooled, not being popular is not the problem. The problem is COBOL jobs aren't competitive, they often even pay worse than other tech jobs. That's why they are either being outsourced or offered to 60 year olds in their spare time. (So arguably they're not that mission-critical, either.) But then who is writi…
The answer to why would news paper would run a bad story usually is just selling ADs.
Usually you see more of this on non-mainstream topics or stories that don't get much traction because there will be no backlash.
Re: Do You Know Cobol? If So, There Might Be a Job for You
#10I can't tell if this is in the article as it's paywalled, but a company in York recently put up an advert for £20k/year for Cobol programmers with no programming experience required, doubling at the end of the training period.