This triggered an avalanche of ignorant technology story headlines the likes of which haven’t been seen since Y2K<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Wanted urgently: People who know a half century-old computer language so states can process unemployment claims!<\/a>” screams CNN.<\/p>\n “Government systems written in the old COBOL computer language are blocking us from our cash!<\/a>” gurgles ZDNet, the FOX News of tech media.<\/p>\n “Unemployment checks are being held up by a coding language almost nobody knows!<\/a>” valley-girls The Verge.<\/p>\n “An ancient programming language is suddenly in demand thanks to the pandemic!<\/a>” derps Salon.<\/p>\n It’s been going on like this for weeks. The drooling stupidity dripping over these stories is inexcusable in the year 2020. The media, let us never forget, is chock full of stubbornly anti-intellectual reporters who flat out refuse to learn because what’s the money in reporting an accurate story?<\/p>\n So, for those of you just joining us (because everybody else lies to you), allow the World’s Oldest Blogging Hacker to explain this mess\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One need only visit the comments section under this story breaking on Slashdot<\/a> to see what the real<\/i> story is.<\/p>\n > “There are still lots of pros that specialize in COBOL [quora.com]. You just need to pay them what they’re worth instead of asking for volunteers<\/b>. Even if some 66-year-old wants to come out of retirement and do it, you should still pay them. This is a BS story, from the likes of “it’s old, so let’s make fun of it.” If anyone on this planet has the finances to rewrite their software, it’s banks and financial institutions. If they’re not rewriting it, then you can bet they’ve done a cost benefit analysis on it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yeah, there’s no shortage of COBOL programmers. There is instead a shortage of government and business offices who are willing to _PAY_<\/b> the COBOL programmers. Here’s a bunch of them<\/a>. They’re not even all that expensive, some as cheap as $15 to $20 per hour, burger flipping wages. Here’s even more<\/a>, all starving out of work because they signed up for Guru instead of UpWork. And people ask me, “Pete, you can code, why don’t you do that for work?”<\/p>\n Here’s a Quora thread asking for COBOL programmers back in 2017<\/a>, a few respond and a few more say they know several.<\/p>\n This is a completely invisible crisis. There is no shortage of COBOL programmers, never has been. There is a shortage of “volunteer” programmers<\/a>, like there’s a shortage of every other kind of volunteer in a skilled, unrespected trade. I, myself, know enough COBOL to at least dope it out. I also know that working for free for an institution that is clearly able to pay is detrimental to my eating lifestyle.<\/p>\n All of us computer geeks are still screaming rebuttal to this myth, as we have for at least forty years and it likely will never penetrate. There is no such thing as a “COBOL programmer” or a “BASIC programmer” or a “C++ programmer” or a “Java programmer.”<\/p>\n There are only PROGRAMMERS.<\/strong><\/p>\n WHAT LANGUAGE DOES NOT MATTER!<\/strong><\/p>\n None!<\/strong> The important thing in the coding arts is that you understand the fundamental mechanics of computer logic, logic flow, algorithms, frameworks, development methods, debugging, data structures, stacks, pointers\u2026 These concepts are present in every possible scenario where you’re making computers do things.<\/p>\n Look, here’s “Hello World” in every programming language<\/a>, a page on the web now older than most of you reading. It’s a canonical exercise where we print a line of text to output, the most basic unit of making a computer do something. All languages have this, plus more or less a standard set of common operations, functions, input \/ output methods. Either the language has the feature natively or you import it with a library. The differences don’t show up until you get into matters pertaining to things like “where will this program run?”<\/p>\n I’m simplifying some of the above, of course. Some smart asses go out of their way to code esoteric joke languages<\/a>. Ignore them, they’re trolls.<\/p>\n The point is that no programmer, none at all, goes through life knowing only one<\/i> programming language. Instead, programmers pick up whatever tool they need for the task at hand. Some jobs want a hacksaw and some jobs want a hammer. Give me any ten random developers with a few years under their belt and I will teach them any language you can name in a week, and that’s including the time it takes to learn the language myself.<\/p>\n Which is why, after the “crisis” leg of the story broke and simmered for a few weeks, IBM and the Linux Foundation have had no trouble at all “finding” and training (emphasis on) COBOL programmers<\/a>. Aha, here are the missing COBOL programmers! They were hiding behind the couch, those playful scamps.<\/p>\n A long time back for another tech publication I got in social media trouble for controversially asking “Why do we want COBOL to die?” Because that line of inquiry also never goes away.<\/p>\n COBOL: “Geez, guys, I’m right here!”<\/p>\n Every hacker wants COBOL to die, as far as I hear it, and yet it does not. Why?<\/p>\n Well see, there\u2019s the perfect, ideal world the hacker lives in, and then there\u2019s the grubby, rusty, industrial world of the business and government sector. Code must also live here, too, because that\u2019s how code makes money. In talking about the chasm between the two worlds and why they don\u2019t understand each other, we have to start with the very first computer bug and end up in the guts of the mainframes that are processing your credit card payments this very second.<\/p>\n COBOL does exactly what it was designed to do\u2026 at the time. This takes a bit of explaining, in two parts.<\/p>\n![\"COBOL_dead_language\"](\"https:\/\/penguinpetes.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/COBOL_dead_language.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMyth #1: There is a shortage of COBOL programmers<\/b><\/h1>\n
![\"programmer_pro_tip\"](\"https:\/\/penguinpetes.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/programmer_pro_tip.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMyth #2: “COBOL programmers” are a thing<\/b><\/h1>\n
![\"blame_COBOL\"](\"https:\/\/penguinpetes.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/blame_COBOL.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMyth #3: The problem is COBOL<\/b><\/h1>\n
\n
![\"COBOL_feels_happy\"](\"https:\/\/penguinpetes.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/COBOL_feels_happy.jpg\")
<\/p>\n