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

[Walt Mankowski via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 06:02:33PM -0400, Steve Litt via plug wrote:
> 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.

That's because it was in my slides. This is the page I got it from:
http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-BANKS-COBOL/010040KH18J/index.html

> 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've given versions of this talk a number of times, along with another
similar one involving punch cards. Often when I give it, someone will
come up afterwards and tell me a story of how COBOL is still being
used somewhere. I remember one about some sort of forestry service or
company in rural Ontario that was having trouble recruiting new
programmers to maintain their aging but mission critical COBOL
system. Their solution was to fund COBOL classes at the local
university. A few of the kids end up working there every year.

Walt
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