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

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 12/14/21 9:59 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 12/14/2021 9:02 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 12/13/21 9:34 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 12/13/2021 3:44 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>>                                                It was done
>>>> using DEC COBOL until the day they made me remove the last VMS
>>>> machines from my data center.  It was not unsuitability that
>>>> resulted in these changes it was politics.  Both VMS and COBOL
>>>> were seen as "legacy". Something the students shouldn't even
>>>> be introduced to.  VMS was easier to get rid of because all
>>>> they had to do was tell me to get rid of the hardware.  COBOL
>>>> took a little longer (and a lot more work) because the course
>>>> using it had to be redone.
>>>>
>>>>> Cobol first got OO features in 2002.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is pretty obvious from the timeline that lack of interest
>>>>> in OO Cobol was not the reason for Cobol's missing presence
>>>>> in education.
>>>>
>>>> Really?  Then where do you assign the blame?
>>>
>>> Lack of demand for the skill.
>>
>> Except that the demand is still there.
> 
> There are some demand but pretty small compared to the entire market.

Yeah, it takes a lot of people to write that next version of
Candy Crush.

> 
>>                                       General Dynamics (who
>> maintain the DOD EMR I mentioned) once offered internships for
>> undergrad students because they were finding it necessary to
>> train their own COBOL programmers.  They would take any student
>> who had at least the basic undergrad intro course and the ad
>> claimed they would teach them COBOL on the job.  I can tell
>> you that the some of the faculty where I was told the students
>> not to apply.
> 
> It happens occasionally that companies train people in Cobol.
> 
> But it is like a dozen here and a dozen there.
> 
> Python, Java, C# get hundreds of thousands every year.

I have seen a lot of internships offered.  I used to search for
them for my students (still do, actually).  I have never seen
one that offered to train the intern specifically in any of
those languages.

> 
>>> Most students know somebody in the industry and if they hear
>>> that companies hire C, C++, Java, Delphi, VB6 (late 90's!) then
>>> they do not go for Cobol. Most students want to work with the
>>> new growing languages not with old declining languages.
>>
>> And, thus, miss out on some very good opportunities.  Those
>> government positions I mentioned offer, as well as good pay,
>> one of the best retirement plans in existence, very good health
>> care and more time off than most private businesses.  As well
>> as long term stability.  It is virtually impossible to lose
>> a government job unless you opt to quit.  I can give you some
>> really good anecdotes to support that, too, from personal
>> experience.  :-)
> 
> Yes. But it is generally considered more fun to work on something
> that is growing than to maintain something that is considered
> doomed - even if it realistically will take decades to get off the
> old stuff.

A shame when you figure these jobs offer a lot more stability than
most of the language du jour jobs.

> 
>>> The fact that there may a great career in old languages
>>> because old code tend to continue running for decade after decade
>>> rarely appeals to students.
>>
>> Again, my experience differs.  I used to sit and chat with my
>> students in the labs and many of them verified the things I
>> was telling them about COBOL.  But, sadly, they were still
>> left with no training and most people will take the job they
>> know how to do over the one they don't.  Even if they really
>> could learn it easily.
> 
> If students wanted to learn Cobol they would learn Cobol.

Sadly, most students never learn to think for themselves and when
it is drilled into them repeatedly not to do someting even if the
reasons given ar invalid they tend to follow like the lemmings
college is preparing them to be.

> 
> Neither ASP classic nor PHP was ever big in education but millions
> managed to learn them anyway.

Don't know about over there, but PHP was very big over here.
Entire courses built around programming in PHP.  Often called
"Rapid Prototyping" or something similar and being the antithesis
of true software engineering.

> 
>>> And that some of the then growing languages went in decline pretty
>>> quickly (Delphi and VB6 turned out to decline faster than Cobol!)
>>> was also not considered.
>>
>> So it is with most language du jour.
> 
> Some thrive long term - some declines after relative few years.
> 
> C++, Java, Python, C# turned long term viable.
> 
> Delphi, VB6 declined quickly.
> 
> We don't know yet how Ruby, Scala, Rust, Go, Kotlin will do.
> 
> In 10-15 years we will know.
> 
>>                                      There are still a lot of
>> Fortran jobs out there, too. But like COBOL you need to search
>> for them.
> 
> One need to search to fine the rare stuff.

I can think of a couple reasons for that.  One, stability.  People
aren't leaving those jobs every 2-3 years.  Two, they don't use
the web job sites because they don't want to have to sort thru 500
totally unqualified applicants with inflated resumes to find that
one needle in the haystack.  (I used to have to handle the first
pass thru resumes and I have seen stuff that just makes you laugh!)
With IBM Mainframes a lot of the searching is done thru places like
the User Group.  I am sure VMS used to be the same way before the
demise of DECUS.  And, there are still a lot of companies that just
refuse to waste time with places like Indeed and Monster.  You will
see the periodic job with them there, but they didn't put it there.
The job site got it thru web scraping.  (Why do you think most of
jobs on all these sites are the same?)

bill