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> Despite the fact that virtually no one learns COBOL anymore Is this true? I mean, I know coding boot camp programs aren't emphasizing in COBOL, but I graduat

> Despite the fact that virtually no one learns COBOL anymore Is this true? I mean, I know coding boot camp programs aren't emphasizing in COBOL, but I graduated from University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 2010 and was required to take a COBOL class. I asked our intern this year (also from UWP) and he confirmed that it's still a required course. I did my first internship building an operations management system for auto dealerships using AcuCOBOL. Using COBOL, particularly when binding to a GUI, was painful. edit: missed "aren't" in my second sentence.

jamescostian 8y ago
I'm a CS undergrad, and my university doesn't teach COBOL in any classes. Sometimes, professors will try to tell us about things in an old language, but then realize there are very low chances the class will be familiar with that language. Many professors have asked if anyone in the room actually knows the language (COBOL, Pascal, Fortran, Scheme, Smalltalk, or something with similar age and popularity) and I'd say there's never more than 2% of people in the class who say they have.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
I find it very odd that any CS program in the USA teaches COBOL. I would guess this very unique to your program and it isn’t common. India might have more COBOL courses since they specialized in it during the 90s (paid off during Y2K), but 20 years on even there I’m doubtful.
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  I would guess that UW-P has a local corporate donor who uses Cobol and recruits at the school.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Is UW-P private? It would be very odd for a CS faculty to agree to that. More likely they have one or many very senior professors who are still very much into COBOL.
    - marpstar 8y ago
      UW-P is a public university in Wisconsin. And you're right: the chair of the department when I was there was a huge proponent of COBOL. I know classmates who went on to do quite well working with COBOL in finance industries. I'd never have been able to tolerate it long term, regardless of pay.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  From April 2018: Companies involved in keeping COBOL-based systems working say that 95 percent of ATM transactions pass through COBOL programs, 80 percent of in-person transactions rely on them, and over 40 percent of banks still use COBOL as the foundation of their systems. “Our COBOL business is bigger than it has ever been,” said Chris Livesey, senior vice president and general manager at Micro Focus, a company that offers modern COBOL coding and development frameworks. Source: https://increment.com/programming-languages/cobol-all-the-way-down/ https://increment.com/programming-languages/cobol-all-the-wa...
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Sure, but that says nothing about university-leve education.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      Seriously? If you don't see the connection between learning a skill and job demand for that skill, then you don't deserve to be in college.
      - derefr 8y ago
        The whole point here is that there's no inherent connection, and so the economy can get into a weird state where COBOL programmers are being paid high six-figure salaries simply because there are too few of them; and yet universities aren't bothering to run COBOL courses, perhaps having executed market research and found that nobody would actually take such courses. This is true, as well, of FORTRAN programmers, by the by, and has been for the last two decades. Personally, I think the supply isn't there for reasons both a bit like the lack of supply of sewage engineers, and like the lack of supply of IT workers for the porn "vertical": like sewage, COBOL-using employers are a job environment nobody wants (e.g. stodgy old banks that don't like change); and like porn, COBOL-using employers don't look good on a CV.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
reaperducer 8y ago
Penn State still teaches COBOL[3]. Rutgers has classes that require COBOL[2]. COBOL is also available at University of Southern California[0], Iowa State[1], and California State University[4]. And those are just a bunch of universities I picked off the top of my head. Anyone who thinks COBOL is dead is misinformed. There's obviously a need for it, or it wouldn't be offered. According to this article[5] from last month, COBOL is still widely used in the financial industry. [0]:https://cse.sc.edu/class https://cse.sc.edu/class [1]:http://catalog.iastate.edu/previouscatalogs/2014-15/azcourses/com_s/ http://catalog.iastate.edu/previouscatalogs/2014-15/azcourse... [2]:http://catalogs.rutgers.edu/generated/nwk-ug_0608/pg23255.html http://catalogs.rutgers.edu/generated/nwk-ug_0608/pg23255.ht... [3]:http://undergraduate.bulletins.psu.edu/university-course-descriptions/undergraduate/cmpsc/cmpsc.pdf http://undergraduate.bulletins.psu.edu/university-course-des... [4]:https://catalog.csustan.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=9&coid=10048 https://catalog.csustan.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=... [5]https://increment.com/programming-languages/cobol-all-the-way-down/ https://increment.com/programming-languages/cobol-all-the-wa...

jamescostian 8y ago

I'm a CS undergrad, and my university doesn't teach COBOL in any classes. Sometimes, professors will try to tell us about things in an old language, but then realize there are very low chances the class will be familiar with that language. Many professors have asked if anyone in the room actually knows the language (COBOL, Pascal, Fortran, Scheme, Smalltalk, or something with similar age and popularity) and I'd say there's never more than 2% of people in the class who say they have.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

I find it very odd that any CS program in the USA teaches COBOL. I would guess this very unique to your program and it isn’t common. India might have more COBOL courses since they specialized in it during the 90s (paid off during Y2K), but 20 years on even there I’m doubtful.

jonhendry18 8y ago
I would guess that UW-P has a local corporate donor who uses Cobol and recruits at the school.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Is UW-P private? It would be very odd for a CS faculty to agree to that. More likely they have one or many very senior professors who are still very much into COBOL.
  - marpstar 8y ago
    UW-P is a public university in Wisconsin. And you're right: the chair of the department when I was there was a huge proponent of COBOL. I know classmates who went on to do quite well working with COBOL in finance industries. I'd never have been able to tolerate it long term, regardless of pay.
reaperducer 8y ago
From April 2018: Companies involved in keeping COBOL-based systems working say that 95 percent of ATM transactions pass through COBOL programs, 80 percent of in-person transactions rely on them, and over 40 percent of banks still use COBOL as the foundation of their systems. “Our COBOL business is bigger than it has ever been,” said Chris Livesey, senior vice president and general manager at Micro Focus, a company that offers modern COBOL coding and development frameworks. Source: https://increment.com/programming-languages/cobol-all-the-way-down/ https://increment.com/programming-languages/cobol-all-the-wa...
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Sure, but that says nothing about university-leve education.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Seriously? If you don't see the connection between learning a skill and job demand for that skill, then you don't deserve to be in college.
    - derefr 8y ago
      The whole point here is that there's no inherent connection, and so the economy can get into a weird state where COBOL programmers are being paid high six-figure salaries simply because there are too few of them; and yet universities aren't bothering to run COBOL courses, perhaps having executed market research and found that nobody would actually take such courses. This is true, as well, of FORTRAN programmers, by the by, and has been for the last two decades. Personally, I think the supply isn't there for reasons both a bit like the lack of supply of sewage engineers, and like the lack of supply of IT workers for the porn "vertical": like sewage, COBOL-using employers are a job environment nobody wants (e.g. stodgy old banks that don't like change); and like porn, COBOL-using employers don't look good on a CV.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

reaperducer 8y ago

Penn State still teaches COBOL[3]. Rutgers has classes that require COBOL[2]. COBOL is also available at University of Southern California[0], Iowa State[1], and California State University[4]. And those are just a bunch of universities I picked off the top of my head. Anyone who thinks COBOL is dead is misinformed. There's obviously a need for it, or it wouldn't be offered. According to this article[5] from last month, COBOL is still widely used in the financial industry. [0]:https://cse.sc.edu/class https://cse.sc.edu/class [1]:http://catalog.iastate.edu/previouscatalogs/2014-15/azcourses/com_s/ http://catalog.iastate.edu/previouscatalogs/2014-15/azcourse... [2]:http://catalogs.rutgers.edu/generated/nwk-ug_0608/pg23255.html http://catalogs.rutgers.edu/generated/nwk-ug_0608/pg23255.ht... [3]:http://undergraduate.bulletins.psu.edu/university-course-descriptions/undergraduate/cmpsc/cmpsc.pdf http://undergraduate.bulletins.psu.edu/university-course-des... [4]:https://catalog.csustan.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=9&coid=10048 https://catalog.csustan.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=... [5]https://increment.com/programming-languages/cobol-all-the-way-down/ https://increment.com/programming-languages/cobol-all-the-wa...