On 21/02/2022 12:35, pete dashwood wrote:

On 21/02/2022 11:44, pete dashwood wrote:

On 11/02/2022 14:02, docdwarf@panix.com wrote:

In article <j6lntvF7qjfU1@mid.individual.net>,
Bill Gunshannon  <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:

Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2022 11:55:30 -0500 (EST)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Ancient Programming Language Is Way More Common Than We
Thought

Joel Khalili, *TechRadar*, 4 Feb 2022,
via ACM TechNews, Wednesday, February 9, 2022

A report by enterprise software provider Micro Focus found that more
than 800 billion lines of COBOL code are in daily use worldwide, about >>>> three times more than expected, despite a decline in the number of
developers familiar with the 60-year-old programming language.

Well... that Micro Focus found a lot of COBOL isn't surprising.

Exactly.

Moreover,
nearly half of developers surveyed predict an increase in the volume of >>>> COBOL used in their organization in the coming year, while a similar
share said they expect COBOL applications to live on for at least
another decade.

(move stuff you can spill to a safe distance)

'This application will be sunset in ten years, there's no need for a
four-digit date.'

I believe there will still be COBOL applications written recently, or
even some years ago, that will still be running in 10 years time. It
is because they are handling core processes that don't change a lot
and because of Human resistance to change.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

If Evolution had taken that stance then we'd probably still be
swimming around some primeval swamp...

Change isn't always about "fixing"; sometimes it is about "improving"...

However, if the environment that the COBOL is running in gets changed
(and this has been the case for most of the world outside the USA)
then it will be converted into COBOL for the new environment and Micro
Focus are making a very nice multi-billion dollar business out of this.

It doesn't take too long before people realize that just recompiling
your COBOL code to run on the Network is an awful solution (because of
paradigm clashes - I have written at length about this on the PRIMA
web site -
3 web pages -

3rd time lucky...

https://primacomputing.co.nz/PRIMAMetro/ObjectsAndLayers.aspx

Sorry, link was incorrect... https://primacomputing.co.nz/PRIMAMetro'ObjectsAndLayers.aspx

https://primacomputing.co.nz/PRIMAMetroObjectsAndLayers.aspx), so they
start moving to OO COBOL, which is much better. But the new
development is being done in newer OO languages and they are quicker
to develop and have better tools. And so the final "migration" is
undertaken and COBOL is eventually dropped.

That being said... every so often a new kid in a recruiting-office will
find a copy of my vitals and send me a position to consider.

I'll respond with a request for a rate... and invariably the number that >>> comes back is less than what I was billing in 1982.

To be fair, Doc, 1982 was around the peak of COBOL popularity and
usage. COBOL was the only game in town for commercial computer
programming...
PCs had just been invented and were still considered "toy computers"
by many, the power of Networking them was still unknown to most,
Relational DBs would not come along until the following year, and the
mainframe and the procedural paradigm ruled supreme.

The rates you are being offered supports the argument that it isn't
just "supply and demand" that drives contract rates; there is also the
perceived "popularity"of the language...

It's insane. On the one hand journalists and senior managers are
bewailing the lack of COBOL expertise available, but when it comes to
it, they don't value it and won't pay for it, because someone says "We
shouldn't be paying high rates for an obsolete, ancient language..."

Being able to get contractors from the sub-continent for $8 an hour
doesn't help... I'm all in favor of seeing the third-world make a
living but there is a lot more to successfully developing a
programming project than just writing code.

I think many Western companies have learned that lesson over the last
couple of decades...

Pointing this out insures that I don't hear from them again... until
a new
kid comes into the recruiting-office...

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I would imagine that most of the
work you do currently is with people you have worked with before,
where they know you and you know them and their company. As such, they
can justify paying you a proper rate.

You definitely don't need an Agency after all the years you have put in.

DD

Pete.

--
I used to write *COBOL*; now I can do *anything*...

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