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They don't need a whole bunch of people who write Cobol. They need someone to write a Cobol to (insert language) compiler.
by derrida 15y ago
They don't need a whole bunch of people who write Cobol. They need someone to write a Cobol to (insert language) compiler.
- anamax 15y ago> They need someone to write a Cobol to (insert language) compiler. That can be very difficult, depending on the target language and the Cobol. More important, the output of said compiler may not be any more maintainable than the Cobol. (Even an accurate translation of assembly language to C can reduce maintainability.)
- ChuckMcM 15y agoOh absolutely, and surprising there should be a reasonable consultancy in it. But the trick is you need someone who understands both their domain (be it billing / accounting / catalog management) and legacy systems and can express that in a more modern system. These people DO NOT WANT PROGRAMMERS, they want tools that help them do their job. So they see programmers like the masons who laid the brickwork of their headquarters, indespensible when it was built, but never to be seen again. So they build their business logic 'tool' and they run it, for ever, and ever, and ever. Sometimes on really cool old hardware like DECSystem 10's or PR1ME machines.