Re: [PLUG] Fw: [plug-announce] Tue Apr 12 - PLUG North - "Modern Cobol" by Elizabeth Joseph and Walt Mankowski (7pm EDT online)

[Steve Litt via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

Steve Litt via plug said on Tue, 12 Apr 2022 02:11:27 -0400


>* Millions and millions of lines of 40 year old COBOL are still doing
>  their job quite well. Same software, always improving hardware.

I underestimated the LOC by three orders of magnitude, as shown by last
night's presentation, a subset of which is available at
https://princessleia.com/presentations/2022/phillylinux_modern_cobol_2022.pdf
. Specifically, page 4 of that presentation subset.


>* The majority of COBOL programmers are in old peoples' homes or in
>  that great data center in the sky (with GoLUGgers Homer Whitaker and
>  Gary Miller), so there are very few competent COBOL programmers
>  remaining.

This is might be incorrect. According to a graph on the complete
version of last night's presentation notes, the significant plurality
(or maybe majority) of Cobol programmers were 35-45, as I remember,
with very few being over 60. This slide doesn't seem to be available on
the subset referenced previously in this email.

Of course, statistics being statistics, some things to point out:

* Was that *working* COBOL programmers, or people who had worked with
  it in the past? Today's COBOL economy is something like the job
  market for doctors during the 1918 flu: We'll recruit aged retired
  doctors (or COBOL programmers).

* Programmers in almost all languages skew young, so COBOL's sparse
  numbers of 60+ programmers might actually be more than 60+
  programmers of other languages, such as React.

I managed to find this link:
https://www.zippia.com/cobol-programmer-jobs/demographics/#age-statistics

The preceding says COBOL programmers by age are: 20-30: 8%, 30-40: 22%,
40+: 69%. It would have been nice for them to break down that 40+, but
oh well.

This page lists the number of COBOL programmers in the US at 959. If
959 programers are maintaining 200 billion LOC, either:

1) COBOL programs are incredibly stable and trouble free

2) There's an insane shortage of COBOL programmers so anybody who can
   do COBOL 101 can get in the door

3) Most US COBOL work is now offshored

4) This 959 statistic is not true

SteveT

Steve Litt 
March 2022 featured book: Making Mental Models: Advanced Edition
http://www.troubleshooters.com/mmm
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