[Info-vax] Opportunity for VSI?

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 12/14/18 10:07 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 12/14/2018 9:09 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 12/13/18 10:56 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 12/13/2018 10:04 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>> On 12/13/18 8:42 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>> On 12/13/2018 5:40 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>>> On 12/13/18 4:17 PM, Milton Baar wrote:
>>>>>>> Or perhaps just granting an educational or discounted 
>>>>>>> license...there
>>>>>>> is plenty of inexpensive hardware around...and I don't think an
>>>>>>> endowment would be either needed or likely.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This could be a way for OpenVMS to be back in the educational sector
>>>>>>> with the possibly positive flow-on effects.  I don't think that the
>>>>>>> IBM arrangement is an act of charity on their behalf, they 
>>>>>>> understand
>>>>>>> the benefits as DEC once did.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> HP had a costless education license. It did not help keep VMS
>>>>>> around Universities it was already at and certainly didn't
>>>>>> bring it into new locations.  Trust me, I know.  I fought
>>>>>> that battle until finally being told the equipment had to be
>>>>>> removed.
>>>>>
>>>>> You're never going to win them all ....
>>>>>
>>>>> When you get someone in charge that wants to go a particular 
>>>>> direction, it's gonna happen.  Not much you can do, nor is it worth 
>>>>> wasting your time.
>>>>>
>>>>> But that doesn't mean the entire planet is going to go in that 
>>>>> direction.  Nothing is that universal.
>>>>
>>>> Academia is.  That's why even with COBOL being a strong contender
>>>> in the business, banking, insurance, credit card, and government
>>>> world no one in academia offers courses that utilize COBOL and
>>>> the continue to advise students to  not even learn the language.
>>>> And then we have OOP.  Once academia grasped this anchor everyone
>>>> jumped on the bandwagon.
>>>
>>> Universities teach a variety of different languages.
>>>
>>> Java, C, C++, C#, Haskell, OCAML, Python etc. are frequently seen.
>>>
>>> Yes - languages like Cobol, Fortran, Pascal and Ada are rarely taught
>>> today.
>>
>> No decent program "teaches" programming languages.  They teach
>> concepts and use languages best suited for those concepts.
> 
> Doesn't change the fact.
> 
>>> But that should not be a surprise. At least Cobol and Fortran are
>>> not very well suited to demonstrate any programming paradigm (PP,
>>> OOP, GP, FP). None of them are particular in demand on the job
>>> market.
>>
>> Fortran is still in use at places like NASA, probablt ESA and other
>> scientific and engineering locations.  Boeing, Lockheed-Martin,
>> Airbus.
>>
>> COBOL is is used by some of the largest IT systems in the world.
>> United States IRS for all income taxes.  DFAS, for payroll for
>> all DOD military and civilian employees.  DOD Medical System for
>> every military Hospital, clinic, Dental Clinic.  The majority of
>> Credit Card processing.  Most of the major insurance providers
>> like AFLAC (yes, the duck uses COBOL).
>>
>> Sounds like you are yet another who has drank the academic
>> Kool Aid.
> 
> Just someone that are able to do basic research.
> 
> There are some Fortran code and a lot of Cobol code
> in production.

There is still lots of Fortran and even more COBOL.  And
even a little research can show that aas long as that
research isn't based on Monster, Dice and Indeed postings.
(Did you ever notice that all the major job sites have exactly
the same jobs listed?  Ever wonder why?)

> 
> But the companies are not hiring people to maintain
> or enhance it.

Experience varies.  The places I mentioned fo0r COBOL are
constantly in the hiring mode.  Finding qualified people
is becoming the problem.  (The last COBOL gig I did was
in GA in 2012.  After I left they spent 3 years repeatedly
advertising for another COBOL programmer.  No one who
applied had any COBOL experience at all.  After three
years they just stopped trying.  I have spoken with them
about the problem and know for a fact what transpired.)
It is not a lack of demand but a lack of supply that is
driving this market.

> 
> Most likely because they have the people to maintain
> the old code and new stuff is done in other languages.
> 

Read statement above.  :-)

> In general. Of course there can be exceptions.

How high does the number have to be before one realizes it is
the norm rather than the exception?

> 
> But what skills are in demand is an observable fact.
> 
> Jobs on dice.com today:
> 
> Java        29992
> JavaScript  23650
> C++         17626
> Python       9476
> C#           6279
> C            4881
> Go           3890
> Perl         2439
> Ruby         2051
> PHP          1635
> Scala        1420
> TypeScript    754
> VB.NET        651
> Groovy        490
> Cobol         373
> Ada           272
> Kotlin        215
> Fortran       122
> Clojure        65
> Rust           54
> Delphi         36
> Haskell        32
> OCAML           8
> Pascal          4
> PL/I            3
> 

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
These are results based on the boilerplate used in vacancy
announcements.  I can provide the inflated numbers for COBOL
and Fortran as well, from one particular employer but I know,
for a fact, that their vacancy announcements are pure, old,
boilerplate.


> You will get a bit different results with a different job search
> engine a different day.

Not likely as they all have exactly the same listing all acquired the
same way.

> 
> But they will all show the same neither Cobol nor Fortran skills
> are not in demand.

Which is due to a large extent from the fact that the people using
Fortran and especially COBOL don't waste their time with those job
sites and primarily do their own hiring.  Whjile some of their jobs
sneak into Monster, Indeed, etc. it is because of the method used
by those job sites to fill t heir listings.  It's called web scraping.
Many of the jobs you will find there can noit be applied to thru
their site but only thru the primary.

The web may be prolific, but it is anything but accurate.

bill