[Info-vax] And another one bites the dust....

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 2/17/2022 5:15 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
> In article <sumfka$spd$1 at dont-email.me>,
> Dave Froble  <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>> On 2/17/2022 3:28 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>>> Nevermind considerations of COBOL as a language; those
>>> aren't terribly relevant.   What IS relevant are COBOL
>>> programmers, and the number of them again shrinks as a
>>> percentage of the total.  Now, in some ways that means
>>> that the remaining COBOL hounds can command their own
>>> paychecks, and that's great for them, but I seriously
>>> want to know: of the N millions of lines of COBOL code
>>> created annually, how many of those are copy-pasted
>>> sequences for existing programs, slightly modified
>>> with new behavior, because without semantically aware
>>> editing tools it's very difficult to understand what
>>> procedures are called from where (lookin' at you, 'THRU'
>>> modifiers on 'PERFORM' statments), especially in large
>>> codebases?
>>>
>>> Those systems are there because they work and because
>>> it is economically prohibitive to move off of them.
>>> But I see the changing landscape, particularly the lack
>>> of new COBOL programmers being produced as time goes
>>> on, as a serious risk.
>>
>> Where do astronauts come from?
>>
>> WE TRAIN THEM FOR THE JOB!
> 
> True, but kids grow up dreaming about being astronauts.
> I don't know anyone who yearns to be a COBOL programmer.
> 
> The issue isn't that you can't train people to do it; it's
> that almost no one _wants_ to be trained to do it.
> 
> Then there's the matter of training materials, educational
> venues, etc.  Universities used to teach COBOL.  High
> quality textbooks were produced.  These days, not so much.
> Most training materials will be second hand books describing
> old version of the language, or vendor-supplied materials
> of varying levels of quality and erudition.
> 
> And who does the training?  I guess the vendors provide
> courses, or its OJT'ed?

Of course people can learn Cobol. All programming
languages can be taught. And Cobol is not even a particular
difficult language.

And people will learn Cobol if there is a real need. That
is how a market economy works. If demand exceed supply, then
price goes up, which cause demand to decrease and supply
to increase and the price continue going up until demand and
supply match. If Cobol developer salaries explode then
people will line up in front of Cobol training courses.
If companies just talk about that they in N years may
see a lack of Cobol developers, then that will not cause
people to learn Cobol.

OK. There is a significant segment of young people in the west
that may prefer to use MEAN stack (cool) for an NGO or green
startup (cool) over using Cobol (not cool) for a big bank (not cool).
But there are other places in the world where such an attitude
is a luxury that cannot be afforded.

Arne