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Battle of the Ages; Stereotypes Collide

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the old-vs-young dept.

JCOTTON writes "A CIO.com article By Phil Murphy explains that "The hype around the shortage of qualified legacy technologists grows each day. Pundits would have us believe that 1.5 million COBOL programmers will suddenly disappear one day, leaving any company with legacy technology in dire straits. The truth is that there are far more programmers with legacy skills looking for work than there are jobs for them, as evidenced by organizations like Legacy Reserves, which functions as a training and job matching service for unemployed or underemployed programmers wishing to modernize their skills." This article explains many of the issues facing "the upper half" of Information Technology workers."

5 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm... by which+way+is+up · · Score: 3, Funny

    They have been predicting the demise of programmers since the invention of COBOL in the 60s. It was supposed to turn ordinary business users into programmers thanks to its easy, English-like syntax. We're still waiting. Now this writer is talking about running out of programmers capable of maintaining code that was presumably easy to write and maintain?

  2. IT workers make tons of money by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thus sayeth IT technical college.

    --
    God spoke to me.
  3. It sucks being a legacy programmer. by muntumbomoklik · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm -still- trying to find a job with my Turtle Logo skills.....

  4. Re:So much for keeping up on VB6... by stupidfoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Time to learn the new language of the month

    what is it this month?

    Ruby? C#?

    Or are we back to Java again? I had the month by month list, but I lost it.

  5. COBOL Dominion Theology by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
    > Pundits would have us believe that 1.5 million COBOL programmers will suddenly disappear one day, leaving any company with legacy technology in dire straits

    Sounds like the Rapture to me.

    For Root himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the BOFH, and the trump of Root: and those buried face-down, 9-edge first shall rise: Then we which are fat-fingered from typing, and remain shall be caught up together with them in the job queue, to meet the Scheduler in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Scheduler, 8"
    - 1 COBOLonians 4:16-17

    I'm goin' to hell for that. But if you make me program in COBOL again, I'm taking you with me, rapture or not.