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I think the author is mostly right, but he fails to recognize that the difference between COBOL and Java is much, much bigger than the difference between Java a

I think the author is mostly right, but he fails to recognize that the difference between COBOL and Java is much, much bigger than the difference between Java and Go. Right now, I think that the full Java ecosystem is "better" (to the extend that can be meaningfully measured) than the equivalent in Go, to an extend COBOL probably never was to Java. Obviously that gap will close, and fast, but it's an example of just how relatively close those two languages are. And then this: > Any developer that cares about their demand in the market (and salary potential) and any employer wishing to hire should factor language life-cycle into their language choice. I’m sure there are still COBOL programmers out there, but I wouldn’t want to be one of them if I was looking for a job and I wouldn’t want to be an employer trying to find a competent COBOL programmer or anyone that wanted to learn. Few things scream "name your salary" in this business like being a competent and willing COBOL programmer. I'm not sure that learning COBOL from scratch is a viable career path these days (there's a chicken-and-egg problem, you're not going to become great a any language without actually working in it, and nobody is going to let you work in it before you're pretty great), but I WOULD "want to be one of them if I was looking for a job".

NateDad 12y ago
> Few things scream "name your salary" in this business like being a competent and willing COBOL programmer. Uhh.... if you can find someone looking for a COBOL programmer in your area, perhaps. But the number of COBOL jobs out there is pretty tiny. Anyone with a COBOL system is looking frantically for a way to decommission it. That's not the kind of project I want to base my family's income on.
- roel_v 12y ago
  "But the number of COBOL jobs out there is pretty tiny." No it's not. They're not advertised on monster.com, true. It's used in niche markets (well, if you call e.g. banking a niche market) and those systems aren't going to be 'decommisioned' anytime soon. There are literally dozens of just vendors of Cobol compilers / environments / toolkits in business today. Like the GP said, I'm not claiming going into Cobol as a 21 year old is a wise career move. But Cobol consultants certainly bill a multiple of what Ruby, Go or even Java consultants bill here in Western Europe.

NateDad 12y ago

> Few things scream "name your salary" in this business like being a competent and willing COBOL programmer. Uhh.... if you can find someone looking for a COBOL programmer in your area, perhaps. But the number of COBOL jobs out there is pretty tiny. Anyone with a COBOL system is looking frantically for a way to decommission it. That's not the kind of project I want to base my family's income on.

roel_v 12y ago
"But the number of COBOL jobs out there is pretty tiny." No it's not. They're not advertised on monster.com, true. It's used in niche markets (well, if you call e.g. banking a niche market) and those systems aren't going to be 'decommisioned' anytime soon. There are literally dozens of just vendors of Cobol compilers / environments / toolkits in business today. Like the GP said, I'm not claiming going into Cobol as a 21 year old is a wise career move. But Cobol consultants certainly bill a multiple of what Ruby, Go or even Java consultants bill here in Western Europe.