Comment by marktangotango | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marktangotango | Hacker News Reader

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I get tired of seeing these same sensationalist falsehoods propagated without challenge. So I shall challenge.

>> We did a piece the other day about how learning the ancient programming language COBOL could make you bank.

>> Which can only maintained by small group of veterans, that grows thinner every day.

>>There are almost no new COBOL programmers available so as retirees start passing away, then so does the maintenance for software written in the ancient programming language.

This is false because there is in fact tons of COBOL talent around (in the US). The waves of offshoring in the '00s left many thousands of unemployed COBOL developers. I personally know of 100's in the local market. A prominent financial services and BPO firm off shored mainframe development, and laid off many 100's here. Most got out of software development all together. This skills shortage simply doesn't exist.

I kind of suspect that when companies complain about lack of talent, what they really mean is a lack of people with the required skill set (God forbid they should pay for training their own employees!) willing to do senior-level work at entry-level wages.

Yeap, it's true.

Me, COBOL in LinkedIn... Inflated offers via LinkedIn, Zero.

Same for Perl

>> The waves of offshoring in the '00s left many thousands of unemployed COBOL developers

If you were a developer affected by stuff in the '00s, you're probably nearing the end of your career (unless you'd just started) The problem here is the lack of a NEW talent pool.

Why do you think this would be true? For example, I went through a mega corps cobol bootcamp in 2003 with 30 other people. They ran two courses a year up until 2008 or so. It's not as if all cobol training stopped in the 60's.

Age 30 in 2000 is 47 today.

Is 47 really "near the end of your career"?

Nearer to the end than the beginning, perhaps.

I always get a chuckle when some hopeful naif writes like they're going to retire at 50 and be done. Most everyone I know who's tried that "gets bored" and goes back to work or starts consulting after a half year trying to find their feet. Those are also the ones who when asked what happened tell you they've got plenty of good years left and are now planning on retiring at 70.

47 is still building steam in my experience.

Our company has high turnover on the bottom. A steady percentage of new hires are bored, retired people. :)

I guess if one lives in SV, it might be.

> Is 47 really "near the end of your career"?

As a non-lead, non-management code slinger? It's usually well past it.

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