RE: Is COBOL still "dead"? Thoughts?

Jorge is in central Florida.....

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


-----Original Message-----
From: Midrange-NonTech [mailto:midrange-nontech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Paul Nelson
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2014 8:30 AM
To: 'Non-Technical Discussion about the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)'
Subject: RE: Is COBOL still "dead"? Thoughts?

A number of the large financial institutions and insurance companies still
running IBM midrange machines are using COBOL. They're not close to
Wisconsin, however, so if somebody doesn't want to relocate, they're
probably out of luck.

Minneapolis has the closest COBOL shop that I'm aware of.

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 409-267-4027
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: Midrange-NonTech [mailto:midrange-nontech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Jim Oberholtzer
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2014 8:16 AM
To: 'Non-Technical Discussion about the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)'
Subject: RE: Is COBOL still "dead"? Thoughts?

Jorge,

Yep, been on it for many years. See you in a few days.

In southeastern Wisconsin most of the COBOL jobs are on the mainframe and
jobs are available. All of the IBM i shops that used to run COBOL in this
area have left the platform. If you know COBOL learning RPG in its latest
version is not that hard. PHP looks so much like the new RPG it's also
scary.

I'm one of the few and proud that know IBM i COBOL and actually prefer it to
RPG (now ducking and running for my life.... ;-) ) That said since COBOL
is tied to the international standards and RPG is not, IBM can to what the
industry asks it to with RPG, they are not as free to do that with COBOL,
therefore RPG is far more functional by a fair distance.

You're a smart guy. Learn RPG and move on. You have the PHP already. BTW:
a large amount of the development on AIX is in COBOL. Up until IBM provided
them with Rational, they did not even have a true development environment on
the UNIX side. (VI and VIM are not development environments but rather
little brothers to SEU)

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


-----Original Message-----
From: Midrange-NonTech [mailto:midrange-nontech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Jorge Colon
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 4:08 PM
To: cobol400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx; midrange-nontech@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Is COBOL still "dead"? Thoughts?

I work with a COBOL developer and I've been interested in the industry. Read
some articles and found a lot of "COBOL is dead" articles and how developers
with 2 to 3 decades of experience are not able to find a COBOL job without
having to relocate (perhaps even several times). They seldom have an option
for telecommuting, COBOL jobs are being shipped to India, and some learn
newer programming languages, but don't get enough experience to get hired.
Some even temporarily relocate away from the family just to survive. It's
almost like starting your whole career again from scratch.

Here's an article on dice:
http://news.dice.com/2012/08/28/mainframe-talent-shortage and this forum
with developers venting
http://www.indeed.com/forum/job/Cobol-Developer/other-non-computer-career-ch
anges-can-go-into-since/t66746

How true does this ring? Do you have personal stories or friends with a
similar situation that you could share?

P.S. Hey Jim Oberholtzer! Caught you on this mailing list. :)

P.S.S. I posted in the cobol400-l mailing list since my question is around
COBOL, but I also posted to the midrange-nontech mailing list just in case
this is considered off-topic and the conversation can continue there.

Regards,

Jorge

Director of Web Development/Owner
2UP Media
c: 407.489.2677
info@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.2upmedia.com

LinkedIn
PHP Zend Certified Engineer

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