There will always exist the solution to pay good enough money that talented programmers can solve this problem. A good programmer/analyst is not hindered (long) by unknown coding language.
The problem is companies that don't understand this. Regards, Thomas Berg ______________________________________________________ Thomas Berg Specialist AM/DQS SWEDBANK AB (publ) > -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- > Från: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] För > Roberts, John J > Skickat: den 23 maj 2012 23:39 > Till: [email protected] > Ämne: Re: Brain drain: Where Cobol systems go from here > > >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. > (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 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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
