[Info-vax] Opportunity for VSI?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 12/15/2018 10:06 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 12/14/18 10:07 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 12/14/2018 9:09 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> 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.

What other research can you suggest that cover hundreds of thousands of
jobs?

>> 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.

That is a hypothesis.

And a very easy one to test.

If it is a supply problem then salaries for Cobol
would skyrocket.

Well - they have not.

So that hypotheses van be rejected.

>> 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.

I must admit that I consider a theory about companies wanting
Cobol and Fortran skills not mentioning those skills in job
ads and instead ask for Java and Python to be clear tinfoil
hat material.

>> 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.

Again that is a hypothesis.

A testable hypothesis.

dice.com

Java    29829
C#       6214
Python   9408
PHP      1614
Cobol     364

monster.com

Java    82335
C#      22907
Python  42227
PHP      6733
Cobol    1736

Hypothesis rejected.

>> 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.

Cobol jobs are some of the most likely to be posted on the
big job sites.

Almost all Cobol jobs are with big entities (financial, government etc.)
they have HR departments that make sure that job ads get posted
practically everywhere.

Arne