I mean... they're right. It's the best way to learn COBOL. Not entirely sure why you'd want to learn COBOL in 2024 but power to ya.
Why?
Well, there are quite a lot of rumors and stigma surrounding COBOL. This intrigued me to find out more about this language, which is best done with some sort of project, in my opinion. You heard right - I had no prior COBOL experience going into this.
I mean... they're right. It's the best way to learn COBOL. Not entirely sure why you'd want to learn COBOL in 2024 but power to ya.
Well, I once heard that since COBOL programmers were a dying species (literally), you could find some high-paying jobs at e.g. banks that still have some “onion layer” type of system and thus...
Well, I once heard that since COBOL programmers were a dying species (literally), you could find some high-paying jobs at e.g. banks that still have some “onion layer” type of system and thus really, really need programmers for maintenance/new features.
Not sure how credible or realistic that claim was in practice, though.
My best friend's dad was a Fortran/COBOL programmer that came out of retirement to make some pretty insane money helping rewrite old legacy mainframe software for several Canadian banks leading up...
My best friend's dad was a Fortran/COBOL programmer that came out of retirement to make some pretty insane money helping rewrite old legacy mainframe software for several Canadian banks leading up to Y2K. I doubt that kind of money is the standard for COBOL devs these days, but there appears to still be a decent amount of COBOL dev job listings on LinkedIn (including at several banks): https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/cobol-jobs/
This is accurate, although the number of jobs that require COBOL are limited. A lot of the fundamental infrastructure for financial transactions is still written in COBOL and, while dated, the...
This is accurate, although the number of jobs that require COBOL are limited. A lot of the fundamental infrastructure for financial transactions is still written in COBOL and, while dated, the simplicity of the original programs make them highly reliable and efficient. The appetite for replacing such fundamental infrastructure just isn't there, since for day-to-day function it's absolutely fine. It's only when there are upgrades or failures that you need someone with COBOL experience.
What an impressively unnecessary project. Got a good chuckle out of me.
I mean... they're right. It's the best way to learn COBOL. Not entirely sure why you'd want to learn COBOL in 2024 but power to ya.
Well, I once heard that since COBOL programmers were a dying species (literally), you could find some high-paying jobs at e.g. banks that still have some “onion layer” type of system and thus really, really need programmers for maintenance/new features.
Not sure how credible or realistic that claim was in practice, though.
My best friend's dad was a Fortran/COBOL programmer that came out of retirement to make some pretty insane money helping rewrite old legacy mainframe software for several Canadian banks leading up to Y2K. I doubt that kind of money is the standard for COBOL devs these days, but there appears to still be a decent amount of COBOL dev job listings on LinkedIn (including at several banks): https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/cobol-jobs/
This is accurate, although the number of jobs that require COBOL are limited. A lot of the fundamental infrastructure for financial transactions is still written in COBOL and, while dated, the simplicity of the original programs make them highly reliable and efficient. The appetite for replacing such fundamental infrastructure just isn't there, since for day-to-day function it's absolutely fine. It's only when there are upgrades or failures that you need someone with COBOL experience.
Oh yeah, I think I heard that in school too. Though I've never seen a COBOL posting in my life.