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GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

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Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#161

Post by dragonwriter »

the_af wrote: post #160
dragonwriter wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Right; I agreed that the general idea was false, but then also pointed out that in the specific case of COVID-19 it is, at least, somewhat less false.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#162

Post by mywittyname »

emidln wrote: post #123
rhabarba wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if they paid for COBOL courses, that is. COBOL still evolves.

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…

I'd happily take a COBOL job for $250k + benefits and a 3% annual raise. That's hardly a crazy salary either. It's still a substantial discount over what a lot of technology companies pay, and likely inline with what most mid-level managers at banks and insurance companies earn already.

But COBOL jobs don't pay anywhere near that kind of coin, and they likely never will in my lifetime. The systems in place are solid enough that they can survive the resolving door of shitty, underpaid contractors who are hired to work on them. Nothing every improves, but it also never gets worse.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#163

Post by mywittyname »

speeder wrote: post #5

Sometimes I wonder if I should learn COBOL just so maybe I can get my first real programming job. (and no, I am not joking...)

If you're first programming job is in COBOL, then getting that second job will be a problem.

The technology stack you choose early on is pretty vital to your career growth. A common way of growing your salary early on is to switch jobs every few years. And to do that successfully, you'll want to have a valuable skill-set that hiring managers are looking for.

For all the talk around here about "fundamentals" being what makes you employable, my experience shows that is not the case. For example, my company doesn't interview candidates without Javascript on their resume because they want people who know and have worked with it. I think it's a dumb policy, but I have no control to change it.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#164

Post by arabelladonna »

the_af wrote: post #146
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.

At least for me, I criticize from experience: I worked with COBOL, and think it's an awful, unfun language, commonly used for unfun projects. And COBOL jobs don't pay particularly well where I live, either. > In my country and in Sweden it is quite easy to get good and stable job in banking/insurance/consulting business Yes, that much is true: a stable job in banking/insurance. Mostly maintaining clunky legacy system…

> If that's what you aspire to, and aren't passionate about software -- which is perfectly fine! -- I guess learning some COBOL is a reasonable career choice.

This is a completely unfair assessment. Even if you're passionate about something, job stability and good pay are going to be the primary drivers in decisions about jobs. I doubt that most people choose, say, Java jobs because they're passionate about Java, or even software in general, for example.

From what I gather, most people leave the "passion" part of their work to part-time hobby work, allowing them to do both. If it then translates into money, good, but the few successes that have been put on blast have blinded people to the reality that passion != money.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#166

Post by phendrenad2 »

the_af wrote: post #146
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.

At least for me, I criticize from experience: I worked with COBOL, and think it's an awful, unfun language, commonly used for unfun projects. And COBOL jobs don't pay particularly well where I live, either. > In my country and in Sweden it is quite easy to get good and stable job in banking/insurance/consulting business Yes, that much is true: a stable job in banking/insurance. Mostly maintaining clunky legacy system…

I'd argue maintaining clunky legacy systems requires more passion for software. It's easy enough to run off to a startup and make the same CRUD app that's been made 1000x before, but maintaining something that grew organically over decades, that takes craftsmanship.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#167

Post by phendrenad2 »

randmeerkat wrote: post #156
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?

Having applied to a few COBOL jobs in my youth, and getting no response back, I suspect that the COBOL shortage is like the general "programmer shortage" in that it really means "(senior) programmer shortage (willing to work for below prevailing wage)"

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#169

Post by the_af »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #166
the_af wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for me, I criticize from experience: I worked with COBOL, and think it's an awful, unfun language, commonly used for unfun projects. And COBOL jobs don't pay particularly well where I live, either. > In my country and in Sweden it is quite easy to get good and stable job in banking/insurance/consulting business Yes, that much is true: a stable job in banking/insurance. Mostly maintaining clunky legacy system…

I'd argue maintaining clunky legacy systems requires more passion for software. It's easy enough to run off to a startup and make the same CRUD app that's been made 1000x before, but maintaining something that grew organically over decades, that takes craftsmanship.

> I'd argue maintaining clunky legacy systems requires more passion for software.

This is one of those things that is easy to discuss in theory, but in practice it doesn't work that way, at least not in most cases. And in my experience working with COBOL at a bank: no, the employees weren't passionate about it. In fact, the only passionate employee was an old guru who wrote assembly code for the bank's mainframe.

You could take it to an extreme, and argue that working with malfunctioning computers, using only BASICA.COM for DOS, writing accounting software and getting paid mere cents for it, requires more passion -- after all, who would want to work like this if they didn't feel passionate about it -- but of course it isn't.

It's great to work in challenging or atypical projects, maybe with tools that are not the easiest or more ergonomical, but there's a baseline of comfort below which you're probably not passionate, just masochistic.

Re: GnuCOBOL 3.1.1

#170

Post by the_af »

arabelladonna wrote: post #164
the_af wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for me, I criticize from experience: I worked with COBOL, and think it's an awful, unfun language, commonly used for unfun projects. And COBOL jobs don't pay particularly well where I live, either. > In my country and in Sweden it is quite easy to get good and stable job in banking/insurance/consulting business Yes, that much is true: a stable job in banking/insurance. Mostly maintaining clunky legacy system…

> If that's what you aspire to, and aren't passionate about software -- which is perfectly fine! -- I guess learning some COBOL is a reasonable career choice. This is a completely unfair assessment. Even if you're passionate about something, job stability and good pay are going to be the primary drivers in decisions about jobs. I doubt that most people choose, say, Java jobs because they're passionate about Java, or…

Believe me: writing Java is on average more interesting than COBOL (I've done both, including some terrible Java systems using Enterprise Java Beans -- I still shudder at the thought -- and Java still wins). Then again, Java has been called "the next COBOL", so that's an interesting comparison.

> Even if you're passionate about something, job stability and good pay are going to be the primary drivers in decisions about jobs.

For a lot of people, yes. Not for all. And even then, it's hard to argue that COBOL is cool or interesting. It's just paying the bills, but nothing to get hyped or write gushing articles about. And there are more interesting programming jobs that will also pay the bills, anyway.

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