Hacker News Reader

Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

It's possible to have a shortage even if companies are offering the maximum salaries they can afford.

The only users of cobol left are large corporations - they can definitely pay more to programmers. Good software engineer can pick up Cobol skills in a couple of month, six month top. We are not talking about neuorsurgent.

My impression from the article was that the barrier to entry for new hires was less the language and more the domain-specific knowledge of the industry and the institution.

Salient quote from the article: "the time before a new employee can stand on their own feet is 2–3 years"

Exactly. It is not like COBOL is that hard to learn, what is hard to learn is how these old systems work and what all the code is doing.

> We are not talking about neuorsurgent.

Most neurosurgeons just follow textbook prescriptions. I don't think this is a good analogy.

> maximum salaries they can afford.

> bank

Uh, you would refuse to do mainframe programming for $1m/year? Seriously?

I meant the maximum amount they judge to be financially prudent. Roughly speaking, an employer will only pay an employee up to the value of that employee's work.

Based on your reply, I'm sure I don't need to explain how markets work?

I don't think so, but I also don't understand the complaint you seem to have.

"Value of the employee's work" is determined by the market. So either you can get someone cheaper or you can't. Either you can run your billion dollar banking operation without them or you can't.

When I said "value of the employee's work," I meant the financial upside to the firm for hiring a specific employee.

There is always a shortage of people willing to cut the grass with scissors for $0.05 an hour. There is always a shortage of people (for any price) capable of running a large corporation successfully. The former you don't need, so you go without. The latter you do need, so you pay what they cost.

If there is a shortage worth complaining about, it implies there is a critical need (a large financial upside -- these articles make it sound like it's an existential requirement for the bank) for hiring an employee that knows Cobol. My point is that if the compensation scaled with that critical need, plenty of people would be picking up Cobol right now, just like plenty of people are honing their business management skills.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com