Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

100 Years of Grace Hopper

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the beautiful-jumping dept.

theodp writes "Grab your COBOL Coding Forms and head on over to comp.lang.cobol, kids! Yesterday was Grace Hopper's 100th birthday, and many are still singing the praises of her Common Business-Oriented Language."

6 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Women by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It figures. One of the wordiest (is that a word?) programming languages was invented by a woman. Talk talk talk. :-)

    I couldn't resist.

    1. Re:Women by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It figures. One of the wordiest (is that a word?) programming languages was invented by a woman. Talk talk talk. :-)

      Men have Perl: a series of unintelligable grunts.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  2. Kids: Learn COBOL, stay employed by davidwr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously. Learn some legacy skills, you'll need them to help your future employer maintain their legacy stuff or migrate it.

    COBOL programmers are retiring fast, in 5-10 years expect a mini-boom for this skill set as those who didn't migrate before Y2K decide it's finally time.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Kids: Learn COBOL, stay employed by camperdave · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nonsense! Cobol is machine independent and self-documenting, and it is still around because it is a very fit, if not the fittest, language for business purposes. Besides It would likely be far easier to pull together a COBOL compiler than to rewrite, test, debug, (document, don't forget document) and release any application that was written in COBOL.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  3. It is very tough to find good COBOL people now... by Panaqqa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The university I went to stopped teaching it about 20 years ago, and most programmers of COBOL with much in the way of practical real world development experience retired long ago. In fact, a lot of them came out of retirement for a few months or a year prior to Y2K because the money offered was so good.

    Today, there are still COBOL jobs advertised, and they largely go unfilled. It could have something to do with the fact that there are so few people remaining with the skills, and something to do with the fact that many of them are with banks who are notoriously cheap on IT salaries. The few remaining good COBOL people on the market go into contract positions that usually begin at about $70/hour. I kid you not.

    It's a lot of typing, writing COBOL, and the code is at times boringly simple, but if someone is out of work and seriously looking for an IT position, learning it would not hurt. I predict there will still be some call for it 20 years from now.

  4. "amazing grace" indeed by deitrahs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    one of the few things i have on my "i love me wall" is one of her nanoseconds, framed with a letter from the admiral to my mother (whom she was trying to encourage into a career in computer science). now that i have a daughter of my own, who is already quite geeky herself, i counterbalance the pop culture effect with stories about women like grace hopper.

    more girls - and hell, more boys for that matter - need to learn about people like her.