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This mention this in the article. They used to grab people off the street and teach them COBOL, paid for by the banks. What happened between the 1960s and today

This mention this in the article. They used to grab people off the street and teach them COBOL, paid for by the banks. What happened between the 1960s and today that this type of practice stopped?

refactor_master 6y ago
They realized they could wait around for the government to bail them out on this expense too? Either it’s a really easy language to learn or the banks used to invest much more in teaching it than they do now (= zero). If COBOL is so domain-specific, why not teach it as such on the job? Why is it the public’s fault for not investing in it?
- rbanffy 6y ago
  > Either it’s a really easy language to learn or the banks used to invest much more in teaching it than they do now (= zero). Very few companies invest in training these days. They expect schools and colleges to teach some professional skills (this is not what they should be doing) and invest as little as possible in new hires, specially for technical jobs.
- patrickk 6y ago
  > If COBOL is so domain-specific, why not teach it as such on the job? Why is it the public’s fault for not investing in it? That's what my comment was saying. According to the article, the banks used to pay for their staff to learn COBOL on the job. It's 100% the financial industries fault that they have allowed this situation to arise. Why did that practice stop? I think this is one of the areas where capitalism is slowly failing in recent decades.
IshKebab 6y ago
Presumably their codebases grew hairier and hairier and now it takes an enormous amount of work to change things without breaking stuff.
- Closi 6y ago
  Maintaining and understanding legacy codebases is often something given to outsourcing companies too. As it requires a deep understanding of how the monolith works and its connections to other applications, it usually needs to be done in conjunction with the support team which may be outsourced too.

This mention this in the article. They used to grab people off the street and teach them COBOL, paid for by the banks. What happened between the 1960s and today that this type of practice stopped?

refactor_master 6y ago

They realized they could wait around for the government to bail them out on this expense too? Either it’s a really easy language to learn or the banks used to invest much more in teaching it than they do now (= zero). If COBOL is so domain-specific, why not teach it as such on the job? Why is it the public’s fault for not investing in it?

rbanffy 6y ago
> Either it’s a really easy language to learn or the banks used to invest much more in teaching it than they do now (= zero). Very few companies invest in training these days. They expect schools and colleges to teach some professional skills (this is not what they should be doing) and invest as little as possible in new hires, specially for technical jobs.
patrickk 6y ago
> If COBOL is so domain-specific, why not teach it as such on the job? Why is it the public’s fault for not investing in it? That's what my comment was saying. According to the article, the banks used to pay for their staff to learn COBOL on the job. It's 100% the financial industries fault that they have allowed this situation to arise. Why did that practice stop? I think this is one of the areas where capitalism is slowly failing in recent decades.

IshKebab 6y ago

Presumably their codebases grew hairier and hairier and now it takes an enormous amount of work to change things without breaking stuff.

Closi 6y ago
Maintaining and understanding legacy codebases is often something given to outsourcing companies too. As it requires a deep understanding of how the monolith works and its connections to other applications, it usually needs to be done in conjunction with the support team which may be outsourced too.