Ok, I was going to resist the temptation, but what the heck. Some of you may remember this joke from 20 years ago:
Jack was a COBOL programmer in the late 1990s who (after years of being taken for granted and treated as a technological dinosaur by all the UNIX programmers and Client/Server programmers and website developers, etc) was finally getting some respect. You see, he'd become a private consultant specializing in Year-2000 conversions. He was working short-term assignments for prestigious companies, traveling all over the world on different assignments. He was working 70- and 80- and even 90-hour weeks, but it was worth it. However, several years of this relentless, mind-numbing work had taken its toll on Jack. He had problems sleeping and began having anxiety dreams about the year 2000. It had reached a point where even the thought of the year 2000 made him nearly violent. He must have suffered some sort of breakdown, because all he could think about was how he could avoid the year 2000 and all that came with it. By the end of 1997 Jack had decided to contact a company that specialized in cryogenics. He made a deal to have himself frozen until 2001 through their totally automated (and very expensive) process. He was thrilled. The next thing he would know, he'd wake up in the year 2001 -- after the New Year celebrations and computer debacles, after the leap year, and after the dust had settled. Nothing else to worry about except getting on with his life. He was put into his cryogenic receptacle, the technicians set the revive date, he was given injections to slow his heartbeat to a bare minimum, and that was that. The next thing Jack saw was an enormous and very modern room filled with excited people. They were all shouting "I can't believe it!" and "It's a miracle" and "He's alive!". There were cameras (unlike any he'd ever seen) and equipment that looked like it came out of a science fiction movie. Someone who was obviously a spokesperson for the group stepped forward. Jack couldn't contain his enthusiasm. "It's over?" he asked. "Is 2001 already here? Are all the millennial parties and promotions and crises all over and done with?" The spokesman explained that there had been a problem with the programming of the timer on Jack's cryogenic receptacle. It hadn't been year-2000 compliant; it was actually 8000 years later, not the year 2001. But the spokesman told Jack that he shouldn't get excited; someone important wanted to speak to him. Suddenly a wall-sized projection screen displayed the image of a man that had a striking resemblance to Bill Gates. This man was Prime Minister of Earth. He told Jack not to be upset. That this was a wonderful time to be alive. That there was world peace and no more starvation. That the space program had been reïnstated and there were colonies on the moon and on Mars. That technology had advanced to such a degree that everyone had virtual-reality interfaces that allowed them to contact anyone else on the planet, or to watch any entertainment, or to hear any music recorded anywhere. "That sounds terrific," said Jack. "But I'm curious: Why is everybody so interested in me?" "Well," said the Prime Minister. "The year 10 000 is just around the corner, and it says in your files you know COBOL..." --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -Voltaire */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Gerhard adam Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2020 16:13 COBOL is not taught because those that know it can make a much better living using it than teaching college classes to people that believe it is “dead” Of course the latter opinion is stupid on the face of it. After all, how does one replace systems that are not understood? From scratch? LOL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
