研究 COBOL 有意义吗？
我曾与我的一位朋友讨论过不同类型的 IT 员工对于意外失业（例如裁员、公司倒闭、过时的技能等）的相对脆弱性，
因为 COBOL 开发人员（或维护人员？）似乎非常脆弱。无论国家状况如何，经济状况如何，甚至无论他们有多好，他们的职位都是安全的。一方面，存在如此多的关键 COBOL 代码，另一方面，COBOL 专业知识的数量却在不断减少，因此，建议刚开始进入 IT 世界并寻找相对安全的工作来学习和实习的人实际上是有意义的。在 COBOL 中！
你怎么认为 ？
I have had a talk with a friend of mine about the relative vulnerability of different types of IT workers to unexpected unemployment (e.g. layoffs, company going out of business, obsolete skills etc.)
as it seems COBOL developers (or maintainers?) seems very secure in their positions, regardless of the state if the economy or even how good they are. With so much critical COBOL code being around on the one side and the deminishing number of COBOL know-hows on the other , it actually makes sense to recommend someone starting their way in the IT world and looking for a relativity secure job to study and intern in COBOL!
what do you think ?
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我最初在 Cobol 担任程序员 10 多年，然后在不同的机构与 Cobol 合作了几年。
如果您了解任何命令式编程语言，Cobol 作为一种技术相当容易学习。
Cobol 本身在不同平台和版本上有很大差异 - 因此很难事先研究正确的版本。
Cobol 的真正挑战不是技术，而是底层业务的复杂性以及系统/程序文档的缺乏。因此很多COBOL专家的真正价值其实并不是实际的COBOL知识，而是对业务的理解。
I started as a programmer with Cobol more than 10 years and worked with Cobol at different institutions then for several years.
Cobol as a technology is fairly easy to learn if you know any imperative programming language.
Cobol itself differs a lot on various platforms and versions - thus it is difficult to study the right version before hand.
The real challenge with Cobol is not the technology, but the complexity of the underlying business and the lack of documentation of the systems/programs. Thus the real value of a lot of COBOL experts is in fact not the actual COBOL knowledge, but the understanding of the business.
我认为成为一名优秀的软件开发人员是有意义的。对我个人来说，你的问题听起来有点像：“我应该占据什么筒仓才能对我的工作感到安全并停止提高自己？”我知道你的意思并不完全是这个。但无论如何，这并不是选择职业道路的最佳动机。
我会说：尝试修改一些 COBOL 代码。如果这对你来说很有趣，那就去吧！就像您应该尝试的其他许多事情一样。
I think it makes sense to be a good software developer. For me personally, your question sounds a bit like: "What silo should I occupy to feel secure about my job and stop improving myself?" I know you didn't mean exactly this. But anyway, that's not the best motivation for choosing a career path.
I'd say: try tinkering on some COBOL code. If it's fun for you, go for it! Just as for dozens of other things you should try.
你必须明白，你提出的论点是相对于时间的，即现在。我们一次又一次地看到，技术如何在t时间显得如此突出，而在(t + 0.001)时间变得过时。尽管你的论点围绕着 COBOL 或多或少已经过时的事实，但他们可能会找到一种新的方法来处理它，然后你再次失业。所以这是第一条规则：
随着时间的推移，他们总是想方设法用越来越少的资源来做同样的事情。你所能做的就是成为一名聪明的软件专家。当你掌握了计算机编程的核心部分时，技术就不再重要了，随着时间的推移，你只需学习它们即可。所以这是第二条规则：
最后，要在 IT 行业生存，您始终需要保持前沿意识。尽管上述所有因素都不重要，但根据经济衰退的严重程度，您仍然可能被解雇。所以最后：
You have to understand that the arguments you made, are relative to time, that is now. We have seen time and again, how technologies seems so prominent at time t and becomes obsolete at time (t + 0.001). Though your arguments rotate around the very fact that COBOL is more or less obsolete, but they may find a new way to deal with it and again you become out of job. So here's rule number 1:
With time, they always find ways to have lesser and lesser resources do the same thing. All you can do is to be a smart software professional. When you get the core part of computer programming, technologies wont matter, with time you could just learn them. So here's the second rule:
Finally, to survive in IT you always need to be cutting-edge-aware. Also immaterial of all the above, you can still be laid off depending on the harshness of the recession. So finally:
尝试一下，如果你喜欢它，那就认真研究它。
如果你学得太好，你可能会发现自己最终陷入了 COBOL 角色而没有出路；它开始得很慢，然后你就会被吸引，因为知识非常专业。如果你喜欢它，那很好 - 但如果你尝试了但不喜欢它，那就不要继续。
Try it, and if you like it then study it seriously.
If you learn it too well you may find you end up stuck in a COBOL role with no way out; it begins slowly and then you are drawn in because the knowledge is very specialised. If you enjoy it, that's fine - but if you try it and don't like it, then don't continue.
确实，当今有大量 COBOL 代码在运行，其中大部分代码都是关键任务。然而，实际发生了多少 COBOL 编码？我看到大型企业逐渐取代那些 COBOL 系统。
It's true that there's a lot of COBOL code running today, and much of that code is mission critical. However, how much actual COBOL coding is happening? I see large enterprises gradually replacing those COBOL systems.
从实际的角度来看，世界上有大量的遗留 COBOL 代码运行在许多系统上（其中许多系统是关键任务），并且很快更换所有这些软件的成本可能会过高。一般 COBOL 程序员可能已接近退休年龄。因此，我们可以合理地假设，在未来一段不确定的时间内，将继续存在对新 COBOL 程序员的需求。
从个人发展/丰富的角度来看，学习 COBOL（以及任何其他新技术和“不太新”的技术）当然是有意义的。我不确定是否会将其放在列表的顶部附近，但它的历史意义足以将其放在列表中。某处。
From a practical standpoint, there's a huge base of legacy COBOL code running a lot of systems out in the world (many of them mission-critical) and it's likely cost-prohibitive to replace all of that software any time soon. The average COBOL programmer is probably nearing retirement age. Therefore one could reasonably assume that there will continue to be demand for new COBOL programmers for some indeterminate amount of time to come.
From a personal development/enrichment perspective, it certainly makes sense to study COBOL (and any number of other technologies both new and "less-new".). I'm not sure I'd put it near the top of my list, but its historical significance is reason enough to put it on the list. Somewhere.
我的猜测是，COBOL 程序员（我是一名 Fortran 程序员，我怀疑类似的情况）相对安全的原因之一是因为他们拥有丰富的经验；你不会从学习语言中得到这个。不要问有多少 COBOL 职位，而要问自己看到 COBOL 职位广告的频率。我认为保住其中一份工作比获得一份工作容易得多。
当然，当一个人发布广告时，你就在与所有那些目前在 COBOL 工作的非常有经验的程序员竞争。
问候
My guess is that one of the reasons COBOL programmers (I'm a Fortran programmer, similar situation I suspect) are relatively secure is because they have oodles of experience; you won't get this from learning the language. Rather than ask how many COBOL jobs are there, ask yourself how often you see a COBOL job advertised. I think that it is much easier to hold on to one of these jobs than to get one.
And, of course, when one is advertised, you're in competition with all those very experienced currently-working-in-COBOL programmers.
Regards
Cobol 开发人员的地位很稳固，因为他们的代码可以赚钱。这并不是一门可怕的语言。事实上，一旦你理解了它的结构，它就相当不错了。
但它只是你工具箱中的一种工具，你应该拥有多种。
Cobol developers are secure in their positions because their code makes money. It is not a horrible language to learn. Actually, it is rather nice once you grok the structure of it.
But it is only one tool in your tool box, you should have several.
我想说学习COBOL并不是完全胡说八道，只要它不是你学习的唯一技术。
I'd say it is not a complete nonsense to learn COBOL, as long as it is not the only technology you learn.