I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Critical government services running COBOL. Programs stored in magnetic tapes, entire offices dependant on one guy who’s retiring. All that code will be lost in time, like tears in rain
There is genuine money to be made in learning the “dead languages” of the IT world. If you’re the only person within 500 Miles that knows how to maintain COBOL you can basically name your price when it comes to salary.
I just wish I had the slightest interest in programing
I’ve seriously looked into picking one of these dead languages up and honestly, it’s not worth it.
Biggest issue is, you have to be experienced to some degree before you get the name your price levels. So you’ll have to take regular ol average programmer pay (at best) for a language that’s a nightmare in 2023. Your sanity is at heavy risk.
I’d honestly rather bash my head with assembly, it’s still very much in use these days in a modern way. Most programs still get compiled into it anyway (Albeit to a far more complicated instruction set than in the past) and can still land some well paid positions for not a whole lot of experience (relatively)
I’ve been meaning to learn Fortran in part because because of the whole “big bucks for being willing to maintain old software” thing, but mostly because I’d like to work on the sorts of scientific computing software that was (and still often is) written in Fortran.
COBOL isn’t too terrible, it has its gotchas (like sizing variables for inputs (in which you don’t need space for the datas headers and will break stuff if you do)) but mostly it’s an old language designed to be easy to use
New staff in my workplace first using COBOL (with other build experience) learn it to the point they’re productive in a week or two
Yeah man I’ll take plain old php and java any time of day, I can still get enough money from it to pay my lifestyle. And at 5pm I can close my laptop and play vidya with no worries.
This is one of those fantasies people have. You might as well hope to win the lottery.
Imagine being the only person who can play a extremely custom instrument. Unless someone absolutely needs you, you’ll be sitting and hoping to get a job. Worse, a company is more likely to hire some people to rebuild it rather than hope to find this unicorn who can do this.
Source: Been in the industry for 15yrs. I’m one of those guys you hire to migrate old software to a web app. And frequently, company will pay to modernize rather than support outdated tech every time.
Been in the industry for 10 years and i deeply disagree with you. I work in COBOL.
Not that migrations don’t happen, but in my experience, many, many companies kick that can down the road each year, because migrating huge and critical services is extremely costly, time-consuming and risky. In the short term, just paying people to maintain the dinosaurs is waaaay cheaper.
Also, it’s extremely easy to get a job in it ( my company now hires people with no IT background and tries to teach them cobol from scratch ), because even though it’s a niche, the demand for it still outweighs the supply of people willing to learn it.
Will it die out eventually? Maybe. I’ve been hearing about its death for a decade, so i’ve become skeptical about it in the short-term.
Edit : would also like to point out that it is indeed a fantasy that it pays truckloads of money. Does it happen? Sometimes, but you need to be really good and experienced at it.
I’d rather not dox myself, but i can tell you i’m in eastern europe working for a western european bank. COBOL is still heavily used in the banking and insurance sectors, by companies that started using it 50 years ago.
If you do manage to learn the ropes, the salary does tend to be above average for a mid-level programmer.
COBOL case is bit different. You can’t just modernize millions of lines of code that is functionally unique without service disruption - and services that uses COBOL that large often tends to be very sensitive.
The fact that COBOL as a language is both atrocity to either use or read didn’t help that either.
There is some logic to running older stuff, a lot of it is a closed system and it’s harder for threats to target it. Banks are a big one that still run a ton of our financial infrastructure on COBOL.
Hospitals also run on a ton of abandon ware, same with machine shops. Ultrasound machines that are still running 95 because for the hospital to upgrade to windows 7 or 10 is millions for a few machines. So you just airgap the systems for security.
Unfortunately, they still have parts that fail, the good news is most of its being replaced with new old stock, so not technically new stuff. I know a good number of companies that have stock piles of basically museum level hardware, to replace failing parts.
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Critical government services running COBOL. Programs stored in magnetic tapes, entire offices dependant on one guy who’s retiring. All that code will be lost in time, like tears in rain
There is genuine money to be made in learning the “dead languages” of the IT world. If you’re the only person within 500 Miles that knows how to maintain COBOL you can basically name your price when it comes to salary.
I just wish I had the slightest interest in programing
I’ve seriously looked into picking one of these dead languages up and honestly, it’s not worth it.
Biggest issue is, you have to be experienced to some degree before you get the name your price levels. So you’ll have to take regular ol average programmer pay (at best) for a language that’s a nightmare in 2023. Your sanity is at heavy risk.
I’d honestly rather bash my head with assembly, it’s still very much in use these days in a modern way. Most programs still get compiled into it anyway (Albeit to a far more complicated instruction set than in the past) and can still land some well paid positions for not a whole lot of experience (relatively)
Yeah everytime someone says “just learn COBOL, you’ll make tons of money,” it’s like,
Bro.
There’s a reason no one wants to write new software in these languages anymore, let alone maintain a forty-year-old pile of technical debt.
Been working in COBOL for a decade and this is all true.
I’m lucky. I personally enjoy it. But i can totally see how it’s an absolute nightmare for most people.
I’ve been meaning to learn Fortran in part because because of the whole “big bucks for being willing to maintain old software” thing, but mostly because I’d like to work on the sorts of scientific computing software that was (and still often is) written in Fortran.
Fortran syntax is a warm summer rain tickling your face compared to c++ for high performance computing which is like slap in the face for non it peeps
Sounds like you got a golden shower from Fortran.
Enjoy.
Its not peepee until you know its pee.
COBOL isn’t too terrible, it has its gotchas (like sizing variables for inputs (in which you don’t need space for the datas headers and will break stuff if you do)) but mostly it’s an old language designed to be easy to use
New staff in my workplace first using COBOL (with other build experience) learn it to the point they’re productive in a week or two
Yeah man I’ll take plain old php and java any time of day, I can still get enough money from it to pay my lifestyle. And at 5pm I can close my laptop and play vidya with no worries.
This is one of those fantasies people have. You might as well hope to win the lottery.
Imagine being the only person who can play a extremely custom instrument. Unless someone absolutely needs you, you’ll be sitting and hoping to get a job. Worse, a company is more likely to hire some people to rebuild it rather than hope to find this unicorn who can do this.
Source: Been in the industry for 15yrs. I’m one of those guys you hire to migrate old software to a web app. And frequently, company will pay to modernize rather than support outdated tech every time.
Been in the industry for 10 years and i deeply disagree with you. I work in COBOL.
Not that migrations don’t happen, but in my experience, many, many companies kick that can down the road each year, because migrating huge and critical services is extremely costly, time-consuming and risky. In the short term, just paying people to maintain the dinosaurs is waaaay cheaper.
Also, it’s extremely easy to get a job in it ( my company now hires people with no IT background and tries to teach them cobol from scratch ), because even though it’s a niche, the demand for it still outweighs the supply of people willing to learn it.
Will it die out eventually? Maybe. I’ve been hearing about its death for a decade, so i’ve become skeptical about it in the short-term.
Edit : would also like to point out that it is indeed a fantasy that it pays truckloads of money. Does it happen? Sometimes, but you need to be really good and experienced at it.
I’ll learn cobol. What company? I do have an it background as a bonus though.
Good luck to you!
I’d rather not dox myself, but i can tell you i’m in eastern europe working for a western european bank. COBOL is still heavily used in the banking and insurance sectors, by companies that started using it 50 years ago.
If you do manage to learn the ropes, the salary does tend to be above average for a mid-level programmer.
COBOL case is bit different. You can’t just modernize millions of lines of code that is functionally unique without service disruption - and services that uses COBOL that large often tends to be very sensitive.
The fact that COBOL as a language is both atrocity to either use or read didn’t help that either.
Unlike a custom instrument, a dead programming language can be company critical though.
How about a little casual graming on the side?
There is some logic to running older stuff, a lot of it is a closed system and it’s harder for threats to target it. Banks are a big one that still run a ton of our financial infrastructure on COBOL.
Hospitals also run on a ton of abandon ware, same with machine shops. Ultrasound machines that are still running 95 because for the hospital to upgrade to windows 7 or 10 is millions for a few machines. So you just airgap the systems for security.
Credit to them for not wanting to move to 98 either.
The good part about it is being more sustainable by using the same PCs for three decades.
Imagine banks, hospitals and so on regularly replacing their machines. That would be an ungodly amount of electronics
Unfortunately, they still have parts that fail, the good news is most of its being replaced with new old stock, so not technically new stuff. I know a good number of companies that have stock piles of basically museum level hardware, to replace failing parts.
Just have a look at the American pension system. They collect all their documents on paper in an old salt mine. Truckloads of documents per month.
Magnetic tapes aren’t that surprising, it’s just even more cost effective storage than HDD.
“But migrating to more well known tech and languages still costs too much!”
-HR and Budget offices the world over