4 ms·

My uncle is a 65 year old COBOL programmer who has never been out of work.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
sanmon3186 11y ago
Legacy code buried in enterprises will always need supporting skills. With aging workforce that coded for mainframes, COBOL will pay more in near future IMO.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Isn’t the problem with COBOL not that learning COBOL is hard, but that you need so much domain knowledge about how the legacy code work?
  - icelancer 11y ago
    The problem is mostly that it's boring as shit. I did a stint as a COBOL developer / systems admin for a bit out of college since I actually took COBOL classes in college (believe it or not this is what we studied in Information Systems I/II and I'm only 32 years old... nice college education there). The language itself is actually pretty cool. I enjoyed working in it and learning legacy stuff; it made me appreciate what we do have now. The work of maintenance on old systems is just annoying and boring. That's all you generally do. Few people are rolling out new things in COBOL even on older systems. It's just maintenance, debugging, and providing support for new features when the domain you are working on requires it.
    - lgieron 11y ago
      Doesn't sound too far off from many Java jobs.
      - icelancer 11y ago
        Hmm. Yeah, I guess you are right. :)
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        Isn’t Java the 21st C. answer to Cobol?
virtualsue 11y ago
Respect!
angelbob 11y ago
A reminder that one way to keep your job security is to learn an important legacy tech really well. I have high hopes for Ruby on Rails -- it won't have the longevity of COBOL, but it's gonna be a nightmare of a legacy system ;-)
- xacaxulu 11y ago
  In some cases, Rails already is a nightmare legacy system. Lot's of fun upgrading Rails 2 apps on the side.
brc 11y ago
I have a couple of friends still workign COBOL and some weird hierarchical network database system that predates relational databases. They get paid insane money, work from home and don't work a forty hour week. I'm guessing they are closing in on 50. Every now and again someone tries to get rid of them but their is too much domain and technical knowledge, and you can't just swap in some outsourced guys. It's a tricky career path but if you just want to count down the clock on your career and build up cash for early retirement it does have it's benefits.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Legacy code buried in enterprises will always need supporting skills. With aging workforce that coded for mainframes, COBOL will pay more in near future IMO.

danieltillett 11y ago
Isn’t the problem with COBOL not that learning COBOL is hard, but that you need so much domain knowledge about how the legacy code work?
- icelancer 11y ago
  The problem is mostly that it's boring as shit. I did a stint as a COBOL developer / systems admin for a bit out of college since I actually took COBOL classes in college (believe it or not this is what we studied in Information Systems I/II and I'm only 32 years old... nice college education there). The language itself is actually pretty cool. I enjoyed working in it and learning legacy stuff; it made me appreciate what we do have now. The work of maintenance on old systems is just annoying and boring. That's all you generally do. Few people are rolling out new things in COBOL even on older systems. It's just maintenance, debugging, and providing support for new features when the domain you are working on requires it.
  - lgieron 11y ago
    Doesn't sound too far off from many Java jobs.
    - icelancer 11y ago
      Hmm. Yeah, I guess you are right. :)
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      Isn’t Java the 21st C. answer to Cobol?

virtualsue 11y ago

Respect!

angelbob 11y ago

A reminder that one way to keep your job security is to learn an important legacy tech really well. I have high hopes for Ruby on Rails -- it won't have the longevity of COBOL, but it's gonna be a nightmare of a legacy system ;-)

xacaxulu 11y ago
In some cases, Rails already is a nightmare legacy system. Lot's of fun upgrading Rails 2 apps on the side.

brc 11y ago

I have a couple of friends still workign COBOL and some weird hierarchical network database system that predates relational databases. They get paid insane money, work from home and don't work a forty hour week. I'm guessing they are closing in on 50. Every now and again someone tries to get rid of them but their is too much domain and technical knowledge, and you can't just swap in some outsourced guys. It's a tricky career path but if you just want to count down the clock on your career and build up cash for early retirement it does have it's benefits.