[Info-vax] Technical issues with VMS BASIC port to x86-64 ?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 2/21/2024 2:42 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Feb 2024 09:51:18 -0500, bill wrote:
>> I wish some of those many COBOL users needed some programming done by
>> someone who actually knows COBOL.  I'm bored and retirement sucks.
> 
> I thought COBOL programmers had come out of retirement and were making
> money hand over fist.
> 
> So is the “COBOL renaissance” actually over? Is COBOL code finally going
> out of use?

There are still a lot of Cobol out there. But not so much Cobol
work, because most of that Cobol code is getting minimum changes.
If it was getting huge changes then it would be reimplemented in
something else.

There has been talk for like 20 years about the problem with
Cobol programmers retiring and noone left to maintain Cobol code.

For many years that was a colorful magazine problem not found
in the real world. Few Cobol jobs and relative modest pay for
Cobol skills.

But my feeling is that it has changed in recent years. Increase
in number of Cobol jobs advertised and salaries moving from low
to mid level.

Not related to Covid. There were some temporarily panic when
old government systems needed to implement new Covid related
regulation at short notice, but that is long over.

I suspect that it is really due to math.

cobol skill demand = constant * (1 - cobol system attrition rate)**time
cobol skill supply = constant - size of year of cobol trained * time

with those formulas then at some point in time demand will exceed
supply. I suspect that it did happen a few years ago.

Arne