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The Top Programming Languages 2024 - IEEE Spectrum
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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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Programming
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Everyone hates php and cobol, and use their scripts dozens of times each day.
I hate php but have to write in it ( help me). I still won’t touch cobol.
I fantasize about being one of those extremely well-paid Cobol consultants when I reach the later stages of my career. Hoping that I can earn a full year's salary in 3-4 months and take the rest of the time off as a semi-retirement. It would be easier said than done, but it's a dream that helps me get through the days when I get sick of the daily grind.
I think those jobs are a myth. You probably get like a 20% premium for using COBOL, so if you look up the salary of a Cobol consultant in America it's going to seem like an enormous salary on an absolute scale.
But so is a C++ consultant in America or whatever. Probably not worth learning COBOL for.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I have looked once or twice and the COBOL salaries seemed entirely normal.
You're probably right. I think COBOL development is one of the cases where the crazier stories are the ones that bubble to the top. The regular scene is probably more mundane.
I do think there are a few advantages to learning COBOL over C++. COBOL seems to be much stickier - companies that use it seem much more hesitant to replace it than a lot of the companies that use C++, and as a result, they will probably get more desperate. And while there's definitely a lot more C++ out there than COBOL, I have to imagine that the number of people under 50 that use COBOL is probably tiny, while C++ still has a very large userbase. On the other hand, consulting depends a lot on your portfolio, references, and past accomplishments, and nobody's going to pay 1k EUR/USD/etc. per hour (exaggerating, obviously) if you don't have any credentials. It takes time to build that up.
Ultimately, I do think you're pretty spot on, but we'll have to see. This is more just a fantasy I tell myself to make it seem like retirement is closer than it probably is....