3 ms·

I investigated this recently after I read another article about COBOL [1]. My conclusion is that it's a much better idea to learn modern languages and framework

I investigated this recently after I read another article about COBOL [1]. My conclusion is that it's a much better idea to learn modern languages and frameworks, and work with web/mobile applications, or machine learning. COBOL does not paid very well for the average developer. I saw COBOL jobs advertised with salaries around $50k to $80k. Another article [2] talked about how "experienced COBOL programmers can earn more than $100 an hour" to fix up old bank software. That's a reasonable hourly rate but nothing amazing. An experienced web/mobile developer will earn more than that, and the work will be much more enjoyable: modern language and tooling, modern software development practices (e.g. test-driven development), plenty of libraries, lots of answers on StackOverflow, etc. [1] https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1316505/ https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1316505/ [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol-idUSKBN17C0D8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol-idUSKBN17...

guitarbill 8y ago
This is the dirty secret, and I think it's largely because COBOL devs don't create that much value. What I mean is, those systems are in place, have largely worked for years, and only need a bug fix here and there. For those, you can get some retired guy back as a contractor and it's still way cheaper than a dedicated COBOL dev. I don't think I know of anywhere that is writing big new projects in COBOL (I'd love to hear of counter-examples). Instead it seems like they've found ways of bolting on extensions as part of some middleware. So what's interesting instead is where are the rumours of a COBOL dev shortage coming from?