[Info-vax] Licenses on VAX/VMS 4.0/4.1 source code listing scans

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 12/11/2021 7:12 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 12/11/21 2:25 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 12/11/2021 1:40 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 12/11/21 11:51 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> On 12/11/2021 8:20 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>>             Kind of like COBOL.  It is probably one of the
>>>>> most used languages for serious business applications in use
>>>>> today.  Some of the largest information systems in the world
>>>>> are written in it.  Everybody is affected by its use every day.
>>>>
>>>> If an application:
>>>> - is processing money
>>>> - first version was written before 1995
>>>> - has not been rewritten after 1995
>>>> then there is a good chance that it is in Cobol.
>>>
>>> And, not just processing money.
>>>
>>>> And a lot of those applications are very important applications.
>>>>
>>>> But I am not so sure that it is one of the most used languages.
>>>
>>> I didn't say most used languages.  I limited myself to serious
>>> business.  There is no COBOL version of Candy Crush.
>>>
>>>> The estimate is that Cobol is about 200 billion out of 3 trillion lines
>>>> of code (7%). And based on hiring statistics it looks like Cobol
>>>> work is like 1% of development work being done.
>>>
>>> Many of the times those hiring statistics are compiled by thge
>>> people trying to kill COBOL.
>>
>> I am very skeptical about such a conspiracy theory.
> 
> Not a conspiracy theory.  A lot of the polls done today have a
> pre-desired conclusion and they are made to fit it.  I point
> this out to pollsters on Indeed all the time.  It's like asking
> "Yes or no.  Have you stopped beating your wife?"  :-)

But this is no a pollster asking some people.

This is counting actual job posts posted by companies that
does not know they are being counted and most likely do not care.

>>>                            I have watched the number of COBOL
>>> jobs publicly advertised rise by  more than 1000% in the past
>>> 5-10 years.
>>
>> Hmmm.
>>
>> At the big job sites the number of Cobol jobs has decreased by
>> 2/3 the last 15 years.
> 
> Based on what numbers?

dice.com search for Cobol done by me:

January 2005 - 1019
March 2006 - 1326
March 2007 - 1230
November 2016 - 434
December 2018 - 373
July 2019 -  228
today - 314

To me that looks like -2/3.

Obviously one could suspect that dice.com market share has decreased
causing the drop.

But when looking at other languages then that is not the case. The
Java numbers are 9573 - 15273 - 16518 - 15397 - 29992 - 14767 - 16685,
which is fluctuating a bit but are definitely not dropping 2/3.

Arne