Anyone Speak COBOL?

[Muhammed]

These COBOL jobs look like they are paying around $80K a year. That is chump change for programmers with a unique skill.

It's a skill that should not be lost, IMO.

 

[my2¢]

These COBOL jobs look like they are paying around $80K a year. That is chump change for programmers with a unique skill.

For large systems it is cheaper to hire a firm where the program coding takes place in India.

 

[Dana7360]

“Some states have found themselves in need of people who know a 60-year old programming language called COBOL to retrofit the antiquated government systems now struggling to process the deluge of unemployment claims brought by the coronavirus crisis.”

COBOL, a 60-year-old computer language, is in the COVID-19 spotlight

As state governments seek to fix overwhelmed unemployment benefit systems, they need programmers skilled in a language that was passé by the early 1980s.

www.fastcompany.com

I have research access to a government system that is based on COBOL.

It runs in a Windows-based terminal emulator – no GUI, keyboard only; type in commands at the command prompt and hit enter.

The problem, of course, is that there are few programmers around who speak this almost dead computer language.

I learned cobal in the 70s when I was in high school. A long with Basic and Pascal.

The last time those skills were needed was the Y2k problem. People could basically write their own contracts.

I made a lot of money off Y2k. LOL.

 

[Dick Foster]

“Some states have found themselves in need of people who know a 60-year old programming language called COBOL to retrofit the antiquated government systems now struggling to process the deluge of unemployment claims brought by the coronavirus crisis.”

COBOL, a 60-year-old computer language, is in the COVID-19 spotlight

As state governments seek to fix overwhelmed unemployment benefit systems, they need programmers skilled in a language that was passé by the early 1980s.

www.fastcompany.com

I have research access to a government system that is based on COBOL.

It runs in a Windows-based terminal emulator – no GUI, keyboard only; type in commands at the command prompt and hit enter.

The problem, of course, is that there are few programmers around who speak this almost dead computer language.

That's a blast from the past. How about FORTRAN? Its still faster than C.
There are other old programming languages that are way more obscure than COBOL. COBOL was so very popular on all the old business mainframe machines. I think C and its variants largely replaced both COBOL and FORTRAN in the majority of cases. BASIC made a big dent on the bottom end where it evolved.

Who here can remember core memory, paper tape and 8" floppy discs?

My first computer was a TRS-80 like this.

Hell, it cost me hundreds of dollars just to get an expansion module to upgrade it from 4k RAM to 16k RAM. I stored my stuff on cassette tapes.

A floppy disc drive was a pipe dream for an 11 year old kid that would have cost me hundreds of dollars more.

But I did learn computer programming. BASIC and BASIC II.

When I got to high school they had a computer course that taught BASIC II. I already knew that so I just took the course for an easy A.

But the teacher was really cute with deeply pretty blue eyes and therefore very persuasive and convinced me and one other student to learn COBOL in another classroom on a different system for extra credit.

I remember those too. I think I got my first real small machine experience on a Kaypro I think it was running CP/M. I think my fingers can still do some three finger Wordstar commands if I think hard enough.

 

[MarathonMike]

These COBOL jobs look like they are paying around $80K a year. That is chump change for programmers with a unique skill.

For large systems it is cheaper to hire a firm where the program coding takes place in India.

Maybe outsourcing to India works better now. I remember when I worked for a big aerospace company back in the 90s and we outsourced a software development job to India because they worked way cheaper than any contractors we could hire. What a disaster! We ended up having to rewrite and test 90% of it.

 

[2aguy]

“Some states have found themselves in need of people who know a 60-year old programming language called COBOL to retrofit the antiquated government systems now struggling to process the deluge of unemployment claims brought by the coronavirus crisis.”

COBOL, a 60-year-old computer language, is in the COVID-19 spotlight

As state governments seek to fix overwhelmed unemployment benefit systems, they need programmers skilled in a language that was passé by the early 1980s.

www.fastcompany.com

I have research access to a government system that is based on COBOL.

It runs in a Windows-based terminal emulator – no GUI, keyboard only; type in commands at the command prompt and hit enter.

The problem, of course, is that there are few programmers around who speak this almost dead computer language.

Yes......let's give government more power over our lives.....they know exactly what to do, and how to do it....once they get around a 60 year old programming language on their computers....

You left wingers who worship government as a god.....really need to start thinking.....

 

[Likkmee]

Career |

 

[Shawnee_b]

The problem, of course, is that there are few programmers around who speak this almost dead computer language.

That's a blast from the past. How about FORTRAN? Its still faster than C.

[/QUOTE]

Why you swear at me!!! EE major, 72. Yeah we had fortran but only geeks could run it!

 

[MarathonMike]

I remember coding FORTRAN as a freshman in Electrical Engineering on punch cards. What a pain in the butt!