Agreed: any job is good if you need the money. My comment is mostly a counterpoint to the usual shill articles we get about twice a year on HN about the "great

Agreed: any job is good if you need the money. My comment is mostly a counterpoint to the usual shill articles we get about twice a year on HN about the "great opportunity" of learning COBOL today because of an alleged programmers' shortage and because there are big bucks there... allegedly. Those of us who actually worked with COBOL know it's an awkward language used for legacy systems, and which should be avoided -- and definitely not learned now -- if you can get any other programming job. No, COBOL is not "fun". No, it's not a good programming language. No, it's not the best money making opportunity. No, COBOL programmers aren't making lots of money. And the downside of getting a COBOL job is pretty big: you have to use COBOL. This week we already had three COBOL related posts to HN (that I saw), one of them of the "you should learn COBOL" shill type.