• lime!@feddit.nu
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    25 days ago

    you could just learn cobol. it’s not going anywhere, unfortunately

    • mesamune@lemmy.worldOP
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      25 days ago

      As someone who has worked with it, it’s not too bad. Lots of $$ if you know someone.

      The biggest issue (that she goes into), is the lack of context. Why is the thing doing what it is doing is the hardest part

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        24 days ago

        You could most likely find some damn spicy contracts. The real question is, is it worth it?

        You’re going to retrofit some old code to fix an upcoming date bug, or try to make some changes wrapped around security vulnerabilities. But these systems we’re relying on, they’re in banks, air traffic control, and in hospitals, we’re not just depending on these boxes but critically depending on these boxes. There’s almost nobody sitting around to give you a second set of eyes on the code, probably almost nobody capable of doing proper QA on the systems you’re working on.

      • Cort@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        I’d bet you will probably work for experience or exposure and very little money on the first job or two you take, since you don’t have any hands on experience. But after that it’s kind of a name your own price gig.

        • tisktisk@piefed.social
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          24 days ago

          I know you’re joking, but it’s one of the only kinds of jobs I can picture motivational enough to pursue

      • lime!@feddit.nu
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        24 days ago

        good cobol programmers are probably the highest paid programmers there are. mostly because there are so few of them and the systems are so critical.

        but like… it’s not going to be fun. cobol as a language is extremely verbose, and you’re not going to actually develop anything. it’s just fixing compatibility problems and y2k issues all day.