In Canada, the Ministry of Health pays colleges to teach kids COBOL and JCL. It's a steady job, pension, good bennies. I know a handful of people who went that route, rather than the riskier private sector.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Would you happen to know how that compares to saying "Fuck it" and going with a Java career for the relative predictability? I'm not asking for any particular reasons, just curious.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I know some Java folks, but my sampling is biased because I meet them where I work - places that predominantly use the younger languages. Actually, I happen to know that the MoH in particular (and probably lots of other institutions) wrap their COBOL/JCL in a lot of Java, so that most devs never need to dive into the "real backend" if they want to just stay at the Java level.

Java people seem like family people. But from what I've observed, their job doesn't seem any different. You can work in javascript, or python, and still insist on clocking out at 16, 1700. But I only work at startups or seat of your pants kinds of places, so I know about what I hear. 🤷