This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz
by Norman Richards.
Original Post: Are Java programmers to cool for Cobol and RPG?
Feed Title: Orb [norman richards]
Feed URL: http://members.capmac.org/~orb/blog.cgi/tech/java?flav=rss
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In an earlier entry on the horrors
of our relational database legacy, I was commenting on a statement
that Jack was making
about The
Incredible Shrinking Legacy Workforces. The article, on the
whole, wasn't terribly interesting, but one comment caught my
attention: And even if students could get this skills training, how
many members of Generation Y can we reasonably expect to voluntarily
learn Cobol or RPG? They'd much rather work on hot new Web apps and
emerging technologies.
The article is suggesting that there will be some sort of crisis
due to the lack of new people trained in legacy systems. I'm not
worried. These dying (but far from dead) technologies don't need to
be the concern of younger techies. These are high pay (yes, companies
will have to pay more and more to maintain leacy systems) high skill
positions that are perfect fits for aging geeks. Long term
marketability of skills isn't as big of in issue as leveraging years
of experience to provide valuable skills. I'm not talking about guys
who have worked their whole careers doing cobol, either. If I were
another 5 or 10 years into my career, I'd consider retraining myself
in a legacy technology wif the deal was lucrative enough.
And if a company isn't willing to offer premium pay for these skills?
They can either move their systems towards more modern technologies
to attract cheaper labor or perhaps these skills will be outsourced to
countries with cheaper workers.
I don't know how legacy skills will be preserved, but I don't see
why there would be any reason to think they should be preserved by
younger workers. If there is any skill set crisis, it will be short lived.
Market forces will prevail.
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