COBOL

[Nitewulf]

Hi
can I ask some of you professionals out there for some serious comments about this language?

e.g. Is it truly dying?
if not who employs COBOL programmers and where
etc etc

Thanx

[WildWayz]

Hmmmmm

It isn't exactly dieing...
There are still loads of jobs out there for older applications that need updating.

Most new apps use C/C++ or OOP languages.

I personally would not touch Cobol as it is very dated, and there are a lot better languages out there.

PS - I think Cobol was strict on syntax, so it was harder to put dodgy code in there

--WildWayz

[schmoely]

I'm not going to pretend I know anything at all about COBOL, coz I don't (apart from what COBOL itself stands for)...

...But I do know that a lot of crusties are being re-employed at silly money to port their old COBOL code to PERL/C++...

niiiiiiiiice

[Black Angel]

I'm not a professional but I'll reply anyway :)

COBOL was the business language of the 70's, this was probably because relational databases hadn't really taken off during this era.

COBOL was/is really good for developing programs that required indexed sequential data files. It was developed for this purpose really, I think.

Computer Weekly has a lot of jobs advertised for COBOL programmers. I'm sure online job companies have vacanies as well. Companies still have a lot of applications that are COBOL based. These need monitoring/updating, looked after etc so there will be jobs.

I know the DHSS has a lot of COBOL based stuff and also my local council is very COBOL oriented. I always used to see reels of COBOL code being spewed out of the huge printers.

Oh btw you can get an OO version of COBOL but I don't know what it's like cos I ain't used it.

[Hades]

I am a professional programmer and use mainly Cobol at work. Personally I hate the language but it is still in a huge amount of use on the mainframe (usually Cobol, CICS and DB2). Front end programming using C++ and Java are much more interesting in my opinion. But all these front ends need a back end database and a lot are written using Cobol.

The salaries for Cobol developers were extremely high in the year or two before 2000 as everyone was panicking about Y2K compliance. But it's dropped off a lot now. In fact many of the contractors are now taking up permanent jobs as the contract market for Cobol is down at the moment. It will pick up again of course and Cobol is certainly not dying out.

But given a choice I'd say C++ and Java are better bets and in the long run will probably command a better salary now to.

[WildWayz]

Personally, I don't rate Java. It may be cross platform, but it is soooooo slow.
Until they can get it running to proper speed, I would steer clear of it.

--WildWayz

[Nitewulf]

Thanx
I do seem to be having trouble locating any COBOL employers out there. Most seem to be down London way, and being disabled and living in South Wales doesnt help :)

It seems that C++ and OOP languages are the way to go as I can work from home or not drastically far from home. Is this a true statement?

[Dragoon]

Large organisations with long established mainframe systems will continue to use COBOL for the forseeable future simply due to the expense involved in re-writing all those millions of lines for no business benefit. It'll
probably still be around when we are all dead :)

[Hades]

Nitewulf - The nearest large city that I know has shed loads of IT jobs is Bristol. That's not to say there aren't any in Wales, but just that Bristol has attracted loads of large companies. So you're more likely to find the smaller software houses around your area I would have thought. Which tends to mean C++, VB, Java etc rather than mainframe.

Yes Java is slow compared to C++ but that's because it is a tokenised language and not a fully compiled one like C++. But Java is here to stay for the short to medium term and it is very beneficial knowing it. I would certainly learn this as well as any other language as it is the mainstay of net development.

The other thing to bear in mind is experience counts for 80% to 90% and knowledge of how to use a language is only 10% to 20%. Knowing a language is really just knowing how to use a tool. It's what you do with it that counts and there is a gulf of difference between a simple coder and a professional developer. So my advice is learn a smattering of one language (whichever one looks most likely to get you a job in your area) and then join a company as a trainee to gain the experience.

Good luck.

[Nitewulf]

Thanx Hades some sound advice there