Interviewing my mother, a mainframe COBOL programmer

Re:Interviewing my mother, a mainframe COBOL programmer by twunde on Thursday July 14, 2016 @06:03PM (#12097530)

What I believe the parent is referring to is that there is an acknowledged shortage of COBOL programmers. See http://blog.stafflink.ca/recruiting-tips/cobol-and-the-mainf... or just google COBOL programmers shortage. There are still plenty of COBOL programmers (and jobs) but most are 45+ with many retired or retiring shortly. Why not train replacements? Schools tend not to train students in procedural programming or mainframe programming so there's a fairly hefty ramp-up period (2-3 YEARS with the possibility that the person may leave at any time during or after training). This COBOL shortage tends to be a large reason why many companies are replacing COBOL systems with systems written in Java or .NET.

That said, mainframes and COBOL tend to be used heavily at utilities, railroads, and government entities. One of my coworkers (one of two former COBOL programmers on staff) just identified that Eversource in CT uses COBOL because of their inability to handle a certain type of id.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Interviewing my mother, a mainframe COBOL programmer by ams6110 on Thursday July 14, 2016 @07:26PM (#12097960)

2-3 years? COBOL is not that difficult.

My first job out of school, at a big consulting firm, and they were teaching new college graduates COBOL in a 6-week bootcamp. And most of them had taken few or no programming courses in school.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Interviewing my mother, a mainframe COBOL programmer by unexistance on Thursday July 14, 2016 @09:33PM (#12098445)

yes language are NOT difficult, it's the same concept everywhere (conditions / loop / boolean logic / etc)

BUT the hard part was, is and will always be domain knowledge, with special cases here & there, obscure logic, miscommunication between expert & developer and others

[ Parent | on HN ]