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Just the Javascript module the world was waiting on! I'm sure this will have a meaningful impact! /s In seriousness: My dad was a COBOL programmer for about 30

Just the Javascript module the world was waiting on! I'm sure this will have a meaningful impact! /s In seriousness: My dad was a COBOL programmer for about 30 years. It would frustrate him to no end to look upon Javascript programmers and to tell him, "these guys are going to be working on your code now." I'd never advocate COBOL or anything, but I'm just saying that it took a certain breed of person to do it, and that those people aren't around anymore is a sad thing.

andremendes 10y ago
> I'm just saying that it took a certain breed of person to do it What would be this "breed" of person you saying? Could you elaborate on this? I'm genuinely curious
- sien 10y ago
  I'm not the poster, but I have a story which might elucidate this. The application I was working on, which had a C++ front end for a mainframe with three databases involved caused an IMS segment to crash. The guy who saw the message got in touch with our senior user and discovered exactly who was doing something to cause the IMS segment to crash. This was at about 4:30 on a Friday in a corporate government type office where about 4 out of 5 people had already gone home. Within 30 minutes he had examined the crash dump, pulled out the COBOL program that had caused the issue and found the constant that had been set 20 years ago that had now been validated. He quickly go the user to alter the case so it didn't happen and he and I put in place new higher constants to protect the data from being damaged in future. It was damn impressive. But well, there are guys like Raymond Chen at MS who can do this for windows programs and in about 20 years, when node.js often means terrible hacked together code there will be JS gurus who can do the same. But if the mainframe systems are still in operation, we have to hope those COBOL guys are still around.
roscoebeezie 10y ago
As a 23 year old mainframe programmer who writes COBOL, I couldn't agree with you more.
- shrugger 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, is it a very lucrative trade anymore? My dad has always wanted me to learn the trade, I've always assumed it's that paternal 'pass the baton to the seed' instinct, and I've never bothered because I've always been afraid that most shops wouldn't give any real consideration to a millenial who says he can program mainframes. Has this been similar to your experience? I'm just curious because it's not a very typical thing, square peg in a round hole sort of situation.
  - zcdziura 10y ago
    Not the OP, but I'm of similar age and also a mainframe programmer by trade. It's a pretty lucrative field to be into, especially because the businesses which operate mainframes tend to be very large and (mostly) stable corporations. While not as hip and cool as a Valley startup, there is something to being well paid and receiving good health and retirement benefits! =) Those same corporations are also not blind to the fact that most of their COBOL workforce will be retiring, en mass, in the coming years, and are quite desperate to hire anyone willing to learn. My employer paid for me to attend a 3 month training program in order to learn how to use and develop on the IBM zSeries mainframe. It was a fantastic experience. As well, those same companies are looking to move as much of their COBOL code off of the mainframe and onto a distributed, server platform. While you can't beat the sheer power of Big Iron chugging along through a batch cycle, the CICS user interface leaves a lot to be desired. It's much more cost and time effective to build a web interface that talks to a Java middle-layer that lives on the mainframe (such that it can directly talk with DB2 or some such), compared to designing, building, and testing a CICS program to do the same thing, yet in a much more ugly fashion.
    - shrugger 10y ago
      Whoa, that is super cool about how they trained you and everything. I have actually heard bits and pieces of sort of like folklore from my dad about CICS and other mainframe pop culture, it's always fascinated me in a certain sense. That there's another whole universe of programming that most people have never heard of or been involved with. I'm actually in the process of getting involved with the US Army now (I'm 21) so that I can get some schooling and stuff done later, but I've thought that I might spend my off-time for the next few years trying to self-teach myself NetREXX or something and try to land a job in some MegaCorp. I'm not opposed to writing code all day in a comfy office chair with full benefits etc, especially compared to living in a dorm with couple dudes eating Ramen and trying to conquer Web 4.0 or whatever. Just doesn't appeal to me. It's reassuring that it's a viable career path, I hadn't thought much about the new generation of mainframe maintenance, but from what my dad has told me about some of the people he's worked with it certainly makes sense that these big corps would be desperate for fresh meat right about now.

andremendes 10y ago

> I'm just saying that it took a certain breed of person to do it What would be this "breed" of person you saying? Could you elaborate on this? I'm genuinely curious

sien 10y ago
I'm not the poster, but I have a story which might elucidate this. The application I was working on, which had a C++ front end for a mainframe with three databases involved caused an IMS segment to crash. The guy who saw the message got in touch with our senior user and discovered exactly who was doing something to cause the IMS segment to crash. This was at about 4:30 on a Friday in a corporate government type office where about 4 out of 5 people had already gone home. Within 30 minutes he had examined the crash dump, pulled out the COBOL program that had caused the issue and found the constant that had been set 20 years ago that had now been validated. He quickly go the user to alter the case so it didn't happen and he and I put in place new higher constants to protect the data from being damaged in future. It was damn impressive. But well, there are guys like Raymond Chen at MS who can do this for windows programs and in about 20 years, when node.js often means terrible hacked together code there will be JS gurus who can do the same. But if the mainframe systems are still in operation, we have to hope those COBOL guys are still around.

roscoebeezie 10y ago

As a 23 year old mainframe programmer who writes COBOL, I couldn't agree with you more.

shrugger 10y ago
Out of curiosity, is it a very lucrative trade anymore? My dad has always wanted me to learn the trade, I've always assumed it's that paternal 'pass the baton to the seed' instinct, and I've never bothered because I've always been afraid that most shops wouldn't give any real consideration to a millenial who says he can program mainframes. Has this been similar to your experience? I'm just curious because it's not a very typical thing, square peg in a round hole sort of situation.
- zcdziura 10y ago
  Not the OP, but I'm of similar age and also a mainframe programmer by trade. It's a pretty lucrative field to be into, especially because the businesses which operate mainframes tend to be very large and (mostly) stable corporations. While not as hip and cool as a Valley startup, there is something to being well paid and receiving good health and retirement benefits! =) Those same corporations are also not blind to the fact that most of their COBOL workforce will be retiring, en mass, in the coming years, and are quite desperate to hire anyone willing to learn. My employer paid for me to attend a 3 month training program in order to learn how to use and develop on the IBM zSeries mainframe. It was a fantastic experience. As well, those same companies are looking to move as much of their COBOL code off of the mainframe and onto a distributed, server platform. While you can't beat the sheer power of Big Iron chugging along through a batch cycle, the CICS user interface leaves a lot to be desired. It's much more cost and time effective to build a web interface that talks to a Java middle-layer that lives on the mainframe (such that it can directly talk with DB2 or some such), compared to designing, building, and testing a CICS program to do the same thing, yet in a much more ugly fashion.
  - shrugger 10y ago
    Whoa, that is super cool about how they trained you and everything. I have actually heard bits and pieces of sort of like folklore from my dad about CICS and other mainframe pop culture, it's always fascinated me in a certain sense. That there's another whole universe of programming that most people have never heard of or been involved with. I'm actually in the process of getting involved with the US Army now (I'm 21) so that I can get some schooling and stuff done later, but I've thought that I might spend my off-time for the next few years trying to self-teach myself NetREXX or something and try to land a job in some MegaCorp. I'm not opposed to writing code all day in a comfy office chair with full benefits etc, especially compared to living in a dorm with couple dudes eating Ramen and trying to conquer Web 4.0 or whatever. Just doesn't appeal to me. It's reassuring that it's a viable career path, I hadn't thought much about the new generation of mainframe maintenance, but from what my dad has told me about some of the people he's worked with it certainly makes sense that these big corps would be desperate for fresh meat right about now.