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IBM will offer free COBOL training

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Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#51

Post by pm90 »

dm319 wrote: post #36
jasonkester wrote: post #13

This isn't the first time the world has needed lots of new COBOL programmers to burst on a single project. I'd suggest the same solution as last time: pay people $500-$1,000 per hour on short term contracts to do so.

As a healthcare worker who also has an interest in programming - why does this comment not surprise me in HN? If a worldwide pandemic doesn't make you reflect on problems in our societal structure - that our key workers are the most poorly paid, but part of a necessary backbone of any country, and that the most over-paid workers are often the least 'key' at times like this - then I guess nothing will. But sure, the s…

“the most over-paid workers are often the least key”.

The ONLY reason that social distancing is an effective option is because so much is possible online and that all that infrastructure is good enough to handle the surge in traffic that they are currently experiencing. Imagine an alternate world in which these services were not as competent.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#52

Post by bitKong »

altitudinous wrote: post #29

My first serious computer job (early 1990's) was COBOL. I last used it in 1997, then moved on to Oracle PL/SQL, Java, Oracle's Java software stacks and now iOS ObjC/Swift. Now I'm 52 years old. I have my own apps now on the store, don't need the money but I am looking for a new challenge - something a bit more social than working for myself. I think I'll do this COBOL refresher. Only issue is I'm in Australia but I s…

Thanks for sharing in your past experience, really good response you have there sir

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#53

Post by VyperCard »

altitudinous wrote: post #29

My first serious computer job (early 1990's) was COBOL. I last used it in 1997, then moved on to Oracle PL/SQL, Java, Oracle's Java software stacks and now iOS ObjC/Swift. Now I'm 52 years old. I have my own apps now on the store, don't need the money but I am looking for a new challenge - something a bit more social than working for myself. I think I'll do this COBOL refresher. Only issue is I'm in Australia but I s…

Wirte a highlevel to COBOL Compiler

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#54

Post by wyclif »

JustARandomGuy wrote: post #33

From the article: * State unemployment agencies are notoriously underfunded* And there’s the problem summarized in less than a single sentence. Yes, they need help, but it’s the same kind of “help” as in “I want a BMW but I only have a dollar, please help” There would be a ton more COBOL coders if companies paid the equivalent of FANG companies - I say this as a former COBOL coder myself

These New Jersey and elsewhere new COBOL jobs are all volunteer, they are not paid jobs?

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#55

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

irrational wrote: post #40
dm319 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a healthcare worker who also has an interest in programming - why does this comment not surprise me in HN? If a worldwide pandemic doesn't make you reflect on problems in our societal structure - that our key workers are the most poorly paid, but part of a necessary backbone of any country, and that the most over-paid workers are often the least 'key' at times like this - then I guess nothing will. But sure, the s…

How will you get them otherwise? There are way more jobs than qualified developers. Why would anyone want to work on an antiquated technology stack like Cobol? By the time they get up to speed on fixing the Cobol systems, the pandemic will be over. The real solution is to think long term and rewrite all of these antiquated systems so that the next time there is an emergency it will be much simpler to find qualified d…

>> Why would anyone want to work on an antiquated technology stack like Cobol?

Because it's actually a hell of a lot of fun. I did a year in a Cobol shop as a graduate developer at a large financial corporation. Working on a mainframe was the most fun I had on that job. And why not? You're logging on to a gigantic computer with millions of users and billions of transactions daily, with a text-based user interface that looks like it was designed by Tarn Adams. And I say that 100% as a compliment.

Seen another way, the "antiquated Cobol stack" is like a deep dive into the history of computer science and programming languages. You can see with your own eyes how stuff used to be done 50 years ago. And there is so much to learn. It's not just Cobol: there's a whole bunch of other languages like Rexx for example that is like javascript on a mainframe, or like, well, JCL which is an absolute horror to behold of course. There's a whole new operating system to learn, or three and there's a whole new computer architecture to become familiar with. How is that not absolute programmer heaven?

I mean, seriously, when I first got all the permissions and so on that I needed to work on a mainframe, I was giggling to myself like a little girl. "Really? They gave me access to all this?". It was like someone had given me the keys to the playground.

The job sure got a bit boring after a while, which is the reason I left, but for a few months it was just sheer tomfoolery, poking at things and finding how things worked.

>> The real solution is to think long term and rewrite all of these antiquated systems so that the next time there is an emergency it will be much simpler to find qualified developers.

That is not a sustainable solution. Fifty years from now people will be making jokes about "that antiquated Python stack" and state agencies will be ringing alarm bells for the lack of experienced young Python programmers. You can't just keep throwing out all the old code and replacing it with whatever new language is cool right now.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#56

Post by altitudinous »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #50
altitudinous wrote: post #29

My first serious computer job (early 1990's) was COBOL. I last used it in 1997, then moved on to Oracle PL/SQL, Java, Oracle's Java software stacks and now iOS ObjC/Swift. Now I'm 52 years old. I have my own apps now on the store, don't need the money but I am looking for a new challenge - something a bit more social than working for myself. I think I'll do this COBOL refresher. Only issue is I'm in Australia but I s…

Serious question, why do you use COBOL and "looking for a new challenge" in the same post? I found it a trivial language with a syntax that goes on for pages. It's entirely uninteresting. The only challenge is understanding any business requirements, and that's not a language thing.

The language itself is trivial to learn, the environment COBOL is running in is usually the challenge. I really enjoy bug fixing existing software, and I enjoy learning about existing systems. As I said I am done with working for myself, and as for the social aspect, I'd find it interesting to work with peers who may be closer to my age, and not a group who is just starting in the game working on their first big piece of software. I was there 30 years ago, this seems an opportunity to work with more mature and experienced folk. Also back in the day there were far more women working in software than there are now, there may be more gender balance in the older technologies.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#57

Post by altitudinous »

VyperCard wrote: post #53
altitudinous wrote: post #29

My first serious computer job (early 1990's) was COBOL. I last used it in 1997, then moved on to Oracle PL/SQL, Java, Oracle's Java software stacks and now iOS ObjC/Swift. Now I'm 52 years old. I have my own apps now on the store, don't need the money but I am looking for a new challenge - something a bit more social than working for myself. I think I'll do this COBOL refresher. Only issue is I'm in Australia but I s…

Wirte a highlevel to COBOL Compiler

Don't enjoy that stuff, someone else can do this academic project.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#58

Post by crispinb »

dm319 wrote: post #36
jasonkester wrote: post #13

This isn't the first time the world has needed lots of new COBOL programmers to burst on a single project. I'd suggest the same solution as last time: pay people $500-$1,000 per hour on short term contracts to do so.

As a healthcare worker who also has an interest in programming - why does this comment not surprise me in HN? If a worldwide pandemic doesn't make you reflect on problems in our societal structure - that our key workers are the most poorly paid, but part of a necessary backbone of any country, and that the most over-paid workers are often the least 'key' at times like this - then I guess nothing will. But sure, the s…

Quite. A proposal for yet more of the consumer-capitalist program of dehumanising via inculcation of greed which is devastating the globe. I entered tech because I was broke at the time. But it truly is an ethical wasteland, and I bitterly regret not having done something more hospitable to human fraternity.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#59

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

lokedhs wrote: post #16
silviumatei wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working in IBM (Europe) in a project that has the main business app in COBOL. Using Java and jt400.jar we just expose via web services the business. Even now we have in team COBOL programmers that creat new programs. I find the main issue when you want to learn COBOL is the access to a machine as close to real one an not a simulator. Maybe openmaineframeproject is the missing link between learning and practice.

I agree. I have attempts to learn COBOL on a few occasions, but it's always stopped by the fact that there are, as far as I can tell, only three ways to do it without investing sometimes insurmountable amounts of money: The first is GNU Cobol. It's quite functional for its intended purpose: To port mainframe applications to Linux. However, when writing a new application on Linux you usually want to do things like acc…

>> They do give you ssh access to the Unix-compatibility environment though so maybe it's possible to edit files using Tramp in Emacs locally.

It's a UNIX shell. You can always use ed :)

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#60

Post by say_it_as_it_is »

Unemployment claims processing is something that each State does and yet each has its own unique way of handling it. This approach is followed for every multimillion dollar endeavor, building costly, redundant solutions to the same problem. This has been great for the private sector but costly for the public.
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