I'm almost old enough to admit I'm old. I remember a time when businesses would take the brightest young "business" minds they had, turn them over to folks like Steve (good teachers) for 90 days, and get back ... COBOL programmers who understood the business. Oddly enough, it was those "90-day wonders" that ground out mass quantities of what is now called "that moldy old COBOL" code.
Now, folks want to assert that today's "youngsters" are too stupid to turn into COBOL programmers? Well, dang it, sonny - the same thing was said about us back in the day - and see how that turned out. Tom Puddicombe Mainframe Performance & Capacity Planning CSC 31 Brookdale Rd, Meriden, CT 06450 ITIS | (860) 428-3252 | [email protected] | www.csc.com This is a PRIVATE message. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete without copying and kindly advise us by e-mail of the mistake in delivery. NOTE: Regardless of content, this e-mail shall not operate to bind CSC to any order or other contract unless pursuant to explicit written agreement or government initiative expressly permitting the use of e-mail for such purpose. From: Steve Comstock <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Date: 05/23/2012 05:55 PM Subject: Re: Brain drain: Where Cobol systems go from here Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On 5/23/2012 3:39 PM, Roberts, John J wrote: >> When the last Cobol programmers walk out the door, so may 50 years > of business processes within the software they created. Will you be > ready? > > > >> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227263/The_Cobol_Brain_Drain? > taxonomyId=154 > > Ed, Interesting article and fairly accurate IMO. > > This is what I can foresee happening: > (1) Many companies will try to offshore their COBOL application support. But this won't work so well because it is hard enough to understand these systems without facing the complications of language and arcane terminology. And the young ones back in Bangalore will want to do Java, not COBOL. > (2) Other companies will want to recruit overseas, either for CS grads that they can train, or for those few that are willing to invest in COBOL learning if that is what it takes to punch that H1B ticket. But even so, once here they are all going to be looking to do something else, not COBOL. So that company that recruits and trains a COBOL resource is going to be looking for a replacement within a couple years. > (3) Efforts to train new young COBOL resources are going to flop, as the article mentions. Again, everyone expects COBOL to be a career dead-end once beyond a 5 to 10 year transition period. Not everyone. > (4) In the end, US companies are going to be forced to pay a premium just to hang on to their old-timers long enough to buy time to implement that new ERP package or new custom application. The ones that will be successful doing this are going to be the ones that accommodate their senior developer's desires: lots of time off, telecommuting, job sharing, benefits, etc. > > John Ahem. We can help. Our problem is reaching the right people. We have a low visibility to training directors and above for most companies, even after more than three decades of providing top quality training to many mainframe organizations. Just too tech-y and not enough sales-y, I guess. So, everybody: help us and your company out: find out who is responsibile for your z/OS applications programmer training and pass this on... There seems to be a resurgence in attention being paid to the mainframe, to z/OS, and to COBOL. For good reason: * z/OS is still the premier operating system in terms of performance, security, and business services * COBOL has been modernized to work with new technologies: + Works with data encoded in ASCII and Unicode + WOrks with data stored in XML + Works with the web - COBOL CGIs can handle transactions from the web, accessing data from VSAM or DB2, then formatting output web pages (HTML) that include the requested information - can even serve up audio, video, and other multimedia files * COBOL is a clear, understandable language that is easy to code, debug, and maintain * COBOL code performs well, with no need for the overhead of Java, for example The Trainer's Friend has a complete z/OS COBOL curriculum, that can: * teach new COBOL developers how to code, test, debug, and maintain programs written in COBOL * teach experienced COBOL programmers new features of the language * teach experienced COBOL programmers how to use COBOL to work with facilities of z/OS such as Language Environment, DB2, CICS, and z/OS UNIX We can teach classes on your site, so the students learn on their own environment. We can license materials so your instructors can teach your students as many classes as needed for just a one time charge. Check out the COBOL curriculum at: http://www.trainersfriend.com/COBOL_Courses/cobolcurr.htm The Trainer's Friend, Inc. is a well-respected company that has been incorporated since 1989, longer than most of our competition. We pride ourselves on our top quality training materials and our dynamic instructors. Visit our website; drop us a line; give us a call - ask questions, explore. Train. Thanks. -- Kind regards, -Steve Comstock The Trainer's Friend, Inc. 303-355-2752 http://www.trainersfriend.com * To get a good Return on your Investment, first make an investment! + Training your people is an excellent investment * Try our tool for calculating your Return On Investment for training dollars at http://www.trainersfriend.com/ROI/roi.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
