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IBM will offer free COBOL training

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Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#41

Post by withdavidli »

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…

That's harsh criticism, maybe well deserved, but doesn't provide a solution. The GP provided a solution with money that's reasonable. This is a short term need that requires a fast turn around. Training brand new programmers doesn't sound efficient at all.

There's also the context of more money in a time when the fed prints trillions of dollars every week. This will be a drop in the bucket, and in an environment where governments have decided to spend their way out of the problem.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#42

Post by number6 »

msla wrote: post #23
number6 wrote: post #14

I don't want to sound condescending but why can't these systems be rewritten in a modern language? Now is obviously not the right time to do this; I am wondering are there technical limitations to do his?

Here's some simple COBOL code: http://www.csis.ul.ie/cobol/examples/Conditn/Conditions.htm identification division. program-id. letters. data division. working-storage section. 01 Char PIC X. 88 Vowel VALUE "a", "e", "i", "o", "u". 88 Consonant VALUE "b", "c", "d", "f", "g", "h" "j" THRU "n", "p" THRU "t", "v" THRU "z". 88 Digit VALUE "0" THRU "9". 88 ValidCharacter VALUE "a" THRU "z", "0" THRU "9". procedure divisio…

Never saw cobol in my life before, guess its "evaluate true when" part. not very explicit but readable. maybe it's just a well written example but something to work with

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#43

Post by guessbest »

laurentdc wrote: post #10
BoysenberryPi wrote: post #5

This whole recent COBOL surge reminds me of a friend I had who was upset that he had a Bachelor's in Computer Science but still couldn't find a job while his friend with no college degree taught himself COBOL and got a job at a local bank.

Yeah, the devs I met with the most stable and laid back jobs are all AS400, COBOL/CICS or IBM RPG experts

That's probably because they work in isolation from newer technologies which are constantly adding business rules. Most of the mainframe work I see involves maintaining old code bases and handling batch processing.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#44

Post by noir_lord »

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…

> 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.

Assuming the 're-written' version isn't similarly out of date by that point in time, the real solution is for business/government to finally understand that if your org depends on software then it's infrastructure that requires constant maintenance and scheduled replacement.

Getting them to understand that is an exercise for the reader.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#45

Post by jsilence »

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…

You can have the solution fast, cheap or good. Pick two.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#47

Post by ghayes »

jimbob45 wrote: post #15
number6 wrote: post #14

I don't want to sound condescending but why can't these systems be rewritten in a modern language? Now is obviously not the right time to do this; I am wondering are there technical limitations to do his?

They’d have to be revalidated. Don’t fix it if it’s not broken. Edit: and when do you upgrade? If they upgraded in ‘85, it would be in C++. ‘95, and it would be Java 1.0. ‘05 and it would have been VB6. None of those would have been substantially better save that they would have been easier to hire maintenance programmers for.

C++ or Java seem like great alternatives. And I don't get the reference to VB6-- in 2005, it would still have been Java, and in 2015.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#48

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

brnt wrote: post #30
watt wrote: post #21

It's a trap. The problem with those old codebases that governments, hospitals, big businesses are struggling with is not really the language, it's the engineering practices of that time with regards to constraints of old technology. The language is not the problem - lack of comments, bad variable naming, bad structure (little or no procedures or readability), and just sheer volume of it, is. It would be very interest…

Just finished a contract with a hospital that built a lot of stuff in house in the 80ies based on a C (still pre C89 in many places) and Delphi/Pascal. The problem is indeed volume (over 10MLoC), two or three wizards supporting it all, but firmly coding like it's '83. No training of newcomers whatsoever, and thus really no way to contribute. If you manage to get some support, it will be once a year and in the form of…

Is it possibly not a management problem at the core? I mean, I know exactly what you mean about suits like to ignore the future, but I've worked with a few 'wizards' who, once they've got the job under their belt, use it to keep other people out.

They'll not comment, help, document or whatever, and once they're doing that, they are uncontrollable. They can't be sacked because they're the only ones keeping the system running, and they won't help others train up. That seems a very difficult situation for the suits to deal with, even if they want to.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#49

Post by augustk »

watt wrote: post #21

It's a trap. The problem with those old codebases that governments, hospitals, big businesses are struggling with is not really the language, it's the engineering practices of that time with regards to constraints of old technology. The language is not the problem - lack of comments, bad variable naming, bad structure (little or no procedures or readability), and just sheer volume of it, is. It would be very interest…

I completely agree. I work with a large APL codebase and the main problem is not the language but the culture. Overly long expressions, one-letter variable names, gotos etc. make the code obfuscated.

Re: IBM will offer free COBOL training

#50

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

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.
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