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GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

sourceforge.net

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Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#151

Post by dragonwriter »

pbourke wrote: post #136
emidln wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they paid well enough, your average working programmer would flip to COBOL for a pay raise. Once you've learned a few languages, you can solve problems in any language. It's just about having the manual and maybe an overview of available facilities so you don't have to read all the docs upfront. The syntax doesn't matter for data plumbing applications. COBOL is as good as BASIC as good as Java as good as Python et…

It’s not the language but the ecosystem that’s a barrier to entry. Do you have a z series in your garage to hack around with?

> Do you have a z series in your garage to hack around with?

You just need a Linux PC with the IBM Z Development & Test Environment.

(Of course, ZD&T, even the “Personal Edition”, doesn’t exactly have hobbyist-friendly pricing.[0])

You can do cheaper (i.e., free) with Hercules, but only with older OS’s.

[0] https://www.ibm.com/products/z-development-test-environment/...

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#152

Post by beezle »

pbourke wrote: post #134
Misteur-Z wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until some COBOL developer publishes his pay slip, I will stick to reality, top IT salaries are at tech giants. From personal experience: BNP Paribas is one of the biggest bank in the world, top 5 if you exclude Chinese state owned ones, and they pay mainframe related jobs like shit. Being young, smart and with a whole career ahead, you have no future working has a COBOL developer, no one should spend his life pickin…

> no one should spend his life picking up shitty code left by his elders decades ago. Would you say that to a civil engineer who works on infrastructure maintenance? Computing is critical infrastructure in many areas of government and business. The solution to all problems cannot be “screw it, we’ll just rewrite in Go with a React frontend.” Some things should be rewritten and some should be maintained.

Back in the day... COBOL programmers were often 'analysts' as well - meeting with the end users and/or management to design and then implement the required system.

Funny to me how so many in this thread rag on COBOL, yet when other languages come up it is always 'well this language is good for abc but I wouldn't really do xyz in that one'. COBOL is extremely good at what it was designed for - data processing, and lots of it.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#153

Post by galoisgirl »

dragonwriter wrote: post #148
galoisgirl wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> COBOL jobs are not particularly well-paying, and there are young people learning it, and no, they don't get awesome paychecks. Yup. All the articles on the shortage of COBOL programmers is actually companies whining that they can't find cheap labor. If they paid well, they'd have their pick of young and old.

> All the articles on the shortage of COBOL programmers is actually companies whining that they can’t find cheap labor. The word “COBOL” isn’t necessary in that sentence. And, for that matter, “programmers” could be replaced with any skilled work field for which such complaints exist. An actual shortage of labor (where the demand curve is above the supply curve at all price points) is theoretically possible, but in t…

And "companies" could be replaced by "people" and "labor" could be replaced by "stuff"...

The case of COBOL is of interest as there was a wave of articles this year suggesting there was some sort of anomaly on the market: tons of COBOL programs and not a soul alive to maintain them.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#154

Post by nonesuchluck »

kjs3 wrote: post #144
nonesuchluck wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my (very limited) z/OS experience, COBOL by itself is necessary but not nearly sufficient. COBOL code is used inside a framework of highly proprietary software and system services: - DB2 (database is builtin to the mainframe) - GDG (Generation Data Groups, versioned file system) - ACL (IBM's original access control lists) - JCL (automation, parameters, logging) - SyncSort (data sorting, joining) - various CA Techn…

Don't forget CICS (OLTP component). But spot on...a mainframe is an ecosystem, not a language.

Probably not hard for you to guess that my experience is limited entirely to enterprise batch processing and data warehousing. I've heard of CICS, but only as a nasty rumor.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#155

Post by dragonwriter »

beezle wrote: post #152
pbourke wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one should spend his life picking up shitty code left by his elders decades ago. Would you say that to a civil engineer who works on infrastructure maintenance? Computing is critical infrastructure in many areas of government and business. The solution to all problems cannot be “screw it, we’ll just rewrite in Go with a React frontend.” Some things should be rewritten and some should be maintained.

Back in the day... COBOL programmers were often 'analysts' as well - meeting with the end users and/or management to design and then implement the required system. Funny to me how so many in this thread rag on COBOL, yet when other languages come up it is always 'well this language is good for abc but I wouldn't really do xyz in that one'. COBOL is extremely good at what it was designed for - data processing, and lot…

> COBOL is extremely good at what it was designed for - data processing, and lots of it.

Well, the hardware that COBOL usually runs on is good for that, sure. And its usually (now) running legacy systems that no one wants the risk of reimplementing from the ground up. But is the language itself particularly well-suited to the task? I think that’s less clear. Certainly, I’ve never seen a coherent argument about how the language itself is superior to modern alternatives even for large scale data processing; if it was, it would be popular for greenfield projects in that domain, you’d think.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#156

Post by randmeerkat »

hansor wrote: post #62

Its awful that most people here are criticizing COBOL, yet they don't even know it, but they just "heard bad things about it". In my country and in Sweden it is quite easy to get good and stable job in banking/insurance/consulting business with Cobol on Z/OS. Salary is around 10-30k PER MONTH. Around 3x more then in let's say Java.

Do these jobs train you in on COBOL, or do you have to be an expert in it already? If you have to be an expert already how are people learning COBOL / preparing for the interview to get this kind of job?

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#157

Post by dragonwriter »

galoisgirl wrote: post #153
dragonwriter wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the articles on the shortage of COBOL programmers is actually companies whining that they can’t find cheap labor. The word “COBOL” isn’t necessary in that sentence. And, for that matter, “programmers” could be replaced with any skilled work field for which such complaints exist. An actual shortage of labor (where the demand curve is above the supply curve at all price points) is theoretically possible, but in t…

And "companies" could be replaced by "people" and "labor" could be replaced by "stuff"... The case of COBOL is of interest as there was a wave of articles this year suggesting there was some sort of anomaly on the market: tons of COBOL programs and not a soul alive to maintain them.

> The case of COBOL is of interest as there was a wave of articles this year suggesting there was some sort of anomaly on the market: tons of COBOL programs and not a soul alive to maintain them.

There’s probably something more like a legitimate short-term shortage in that case, because you have lots of immediate demand for changes (because of urgent business process changes) to stale legacy systems, so you really don’t have the luxury of waiting on long-term corrective mechanisms like retraining, price signalling through the pipeline for workforce entrants, etc., before the value opportunity is missed. COVID-19 and the resulting (many probably short-term) legal and business changes created a number of market anomalies of that kind.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#158

Post by 908B64B197 »

Misteur-Z wrote: post #87
hansor wrote: post #62

Its awful that most people here are criticizing COBOL, yet they don't even know it, but they just "heard bad things about it". In my country and in Sweden it is quite easy to get good and stable job in banking/insurance/consulting business with Cobol on Z/OS. Salary is around 10-30k PER MONTH. Around 3x more then in let's say Java.

Until some COBOL developer publishes his pay slip, I will stick to reality, top IT salaries are at tech giants. From personal experience: BNP Paribas is one of the biggest bank in the world, top 5 if you exclude Chinese state owned ones, and they pay mainframe related jobs like shit. Being young, smart and with a whole career ahead, you have no future working has a COBOL developer, no one should spend his life pickin…

> BNP Paribas

Despite producing some of the best engineering talent in the world it seems that French engineer are systematically underpaid.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#159

Post by mywittyname »

Jakobeha wrote: post #109
the_only_law wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always heard COBOL devs referred to as either highly paid consultants keeping critical applications alive for corporations or wage slaves maintaining a painful app for below average pay.

I've heard it's the computer science equivalent of a plumber or janitor. The job doesn't sound particularly fun, but because of this it's high demand and great pay. It's a good job if you accept that work isn't fun, and you don't care about climbing the ladder, you're just looking for a decent, reliable income.

It's not a particularly well-paying or common job. I live an area with a large number of insurance companies and banking HQs, so COBOL jobs are a little more common than most of the US. Most job postings are for contractors paying mid-30s to lower 40s per hour, with a handful in the 50s.

That's an okay salary in absolute terms, but it's not a great one for a software engineering position. Even in a fly-over state.

But taking that job is basically career suicide. After 3-5 years of doing that, you'll be completely unemployable outside of insurance unless you spend time on your own learning useful skills. And if you do that, you're probably starting back down in a junior or mid-level role.

Anyone would be much better off getting an AWS cert and learning to write SQL.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#160

Post by the_af »

dragonwriter wrote: post #157
galoisgirl wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And "companies" could be replaced by "people" and "labor" could be replaced by "stuff"... The case of COBOL is of interest as there was a wave of articles this year suggesting there was some sort of anomaly on the market: tons of COBOL programs and not a soul alive to maintain them.

> The case of COBOL is of interest as there was a wave of articles this year suggesting there was some sort of anomaly on the market: tons of COBOL programs and not a soul alive to maintain them. There’s probably something more like a legitimate short-term shortage in that case, because you have lots of immediate demand for changes (because of urgent business process changes) to stale legacy systems, so you really do…

Do note this kind of wave of articles is recurrent, is not tied in general to COVID-19 (might be in the current situation, but I've seen it at least once or twice a year), and has been almost always false. "False" in the sense that no, learning COBOL is not such a great career choice to enter a life of wealth and untapped riches.
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