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In what way is it terrible?
No you don't? What are you basing this claim off?
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I'm a COBOL developer. For old COBOL systems it's not just a case of it being expensive to "migrate away", it's extremely risky and for no significant benefit.
Businesses have essentially two options, modernize what they already have, or tear everything apart and start from scratch. COBOL programs don't "just work", they're good at what they need to do (business transactions). Therefore, there isn't a significant need to rewrite everything, especially when it's possible to modernize and reuse existing business logic contained within COBOL programs. For example, COBOL programs aren't tied to old hardware, you can run your COBOL applications on the cloud instead. This is much safer and cheaper than rewriting everything.
I would say I'm a very ideals-driven person as well. I had hoped to get a job with a company whose values aligned with my own upon graduating.
My experience was that it was really difficult getting my first job when I was being fussy with who I was sending my applications to. This is despite having both an undergraduate and postgraduate degree with the highest possible grades and also industry experience.
Eventually I gave in and started sending applications to all sorts of companies and took the first job I got offered. I'm still early in my career and I'm still working with this company.
Honestly I think for a first job it's just worth taking whatever comes your way if it will offer you valuable experience. Then you can always apply for other jobs whilst you're earning money and experience. That's my plan anyway.
Other than that, I would recommend checking out this website: https://80000hours.org/
I often think about the learning pyramid and I find it lines up with my personal experiences.
The experiences which have made me better at programming are when I'm teaching others or when I've been working on projects in my spare time (practicing).
For example whilst I was still at university I decided to make a Discord chatbot and it really helped me build on what I'd already been taught.
Other than that I like reading coding standards documents, like this.
I encounter something similar to this often.
There's a lot of cookie banners where "Accept All Cookies" is a single button but in order to reject cookies you have to press a "Manage Cookies" link which will have something similar to a "Reject All Cookies" button in it.
It's very annoying.
Yes this would make sense.
Quote from "What methods can we use to obtain consent?":
If you are asking for consent electronically, consent must be “not unnecessarily disruptive to the use of the service for which it is provided”. You need to ensure you adopt the most user-friendly method you can.
For a website, hiding rejection behind a link should class as "unnecessarily disruptive". If you can provide consent with the press of a single button then rejecting should also be the press of a single button.
I think you're referring to healthline: https://anon.healthline.com/
The UK's air traffic control system shut itself down after software confusion over an unusual flight path.
On the 28th August the UK's air traffic control system to shut down, causing hundreds of flights to be delayed or cancelled. Before now the shutdown was blamed on a vague data processing glitch, but the exact cause has now been disclosed.
> In its initial report published on Wednesday, [the National Air Traffic Service] said that at 08:32 on 28 August, its system received details of a flight which was due to cross UK airspace later that day.
> The system detected that two markers along the planned route had the same name - even though they were in different places. As a result, it could not understand the UK portion of the flight plan.
> This triggered the system to automatically stop working for safety reasons, so that no incorrect information was passed to [the National Air Traffic Service's] air traffic controllers. The backup system then did the same thing.
> Martin Rolfe, chief executive of [the National Air Traffic Service], said that the system did "what it was designed to do, i.e. fail safely when it receives data that it can't process".
Had a quick scan of the CTV article and I don't believe it links to the Mozilla article. It can be read here. Here's an archive link too.
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You're right that many COBOL jobs are those working with mission-critical software. However, these companies are not only looking for senior developers. They hire developers from a range of skill levels, including junior developers, for much the same reasons that any other company does.
Source: I am a junior COBOL developer! :)
Though I think if someone is wanting to make a wise career choice, they shouldn't only be learning only one programming language anyway...
This might be a nonesense suggestion, but have you tried out Lutris?
Disclaimer: I'm still a Linux noob myself (I made the switch as of 2 days ago). Lutris was a tool I saw often being mentioned when I was doing research on gaming on Linux, but I have not tried it out myself yet.
Hi everyone!
Following the results of the icon poll I am looking to make a new icon for our COBOL community here!
COBOL does not have an official logo like other programming languages. I am worried the current logo communicates that COBOL is an archaic, outdated, or dead language, therefore I am seeking suggestions for alternatives.
For suggestions, please suggest an icon from game-icons.net and what hex colour gradient it should have. A brief explanation of why you chose that image/what it represents would be great too but not required!
An example suggestion format: >- Icon: https://game-icons.net/1x1/delapouite/triceratops-head.html >- Gradiant: 2EE5D2 - A01FC5 >- Additional Info (Optional): I chose a Triceratops because a lot of COBOL imagery from third-parties use a Triceratops. The colour gradient is the one used in this post.
Megathread for people who want to get started learning COBOL! This list is a working document and will be updated over time.
Feel free to comment with resources you think should be added to this list!
Free Compilers & Extensions
- GnuCOBOL - A free/libre COBOL compiler
- OtterKit - A modern FOSS COBOL compiler
- Learn COBOL - Visual Studio Code Extension
- Visual COBOL Personal Edition - Learn COBOL with Visual Studio or Eclipse
Free Online Training Courses
- Open Mainframe Project - Video materials on IBM Digital Learning Platform, Coursera, Pluralsight, or YouTube
- Micro Focus COBOL Fundamentals - Instructor-led videos, hands-on tutorials, and development tools
- Department of CSIS - COBOL programming tutorials, lectures, exercises, and examples
- Tutorials Point
- Learn COBOL in One Video - YouTube course
- COBOL Programming 101 - YouTube course
Free Books
- Visual COBOL: A Developer's Guide to Modern COBOL
- Visual COBOL: New Application Modernization Tools for the Java Developer
Other Resources
1.13K Posts, 195 Following, 42.9K Followers · We make very small computers that cost $5 - $35. This instance is hosted on a Raspberry Pi.
Raspberry Pi has an official presence over on raspberrypi.social!
Their single-user instance is hosted on a Raspberry Pi. It appears they host their instance using Mythic Beasts, or at least that's what this article states.
Both Lemmy and Mastodon use ActivityPub so are able to federate with one another.
COBOL Market Shown to be Three Times Larger than Previously Estimated in New Independent Survey
A common statistic I see quoted about COBOL is that there are "more than 200 billion lines of COBOL in existence with an extimated 5 billion of new code [written] annually". This statistic comes from a 1997 study by the Gartner Group. Archive Link Here
A more recent study by Vanson Bourne (commissioned by Micro Focus) in Feburary 2022 estimated that there are actually around 775-850 billion lines of COBOL in daily use. Archive Link Here
Just a pigeon walking on a keyboard and posting on the Fediverse, somehow...