This probably won't help me in my current job search, but is it worth learning COBOL? I've heard that there are still a bunch of critical systems out there that use it, and that it's hard to find COBOL devs these days.
Is this still the case? The only downside I can see is that I'd have to program in COBOL.
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Dear job posting,
If you expect me to install spyware so that you can micromanage me while I work, at least have the decency not to expect me to supply the hardware.
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Went to pick up a prescription and the guy ahead of me in line was chewing the pharmacist out about the automated system, which admittedly sucks but is certainly a decision made by corporate, not her.
He repeatedly threatened to take his business elsewhere. Were I in her position, the response I'd have wanted to give was "please do".
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Sooo... I have a flatpak version of LibreOffice, and for whatever reason (probably sandboxing) the spellchecker can't see the text of my document.
I may or may not have sent off a bunch of resumes that said that I "wrote technical documentaiton" in a previous job.
That's just super.
There's a job I really want a decent shot at. Thank God I caught it before submitting to that one.
Edit: I typo'd my typo. π
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Back in the 1990s I worked at a very large government facility on an RFP for getting an ISP. The winning bidder had in the footer of every page "Bid for Interenet Service Provider." Nobody but me noticed.
Of course, the Interenet was so new in the 1990s that maybe they thought that's how it's spelled...
S3 E28 Peace Educator, Author... CULT LEADER: Maharaji/Prem Rawat
In this episode of the Cult Vault podcast, host Kacey speaks with Don Johnson, who shares his journey from being a follower of Prem Rawat to becoming an instrucSpreaker
- YouTube
Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. AuΓerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.www.youtube.com
I am in urgent job search mode, so I'm gonna throw this out here and see if anything comes of it.
I am a #Canadian, fluent in both #English and #French. I have experience with several programming languages. My strongest proficiency is with #Haskell and #C. I also have a reasonable grasp of #HTML, #JavaScript, #SQL, #Python, #Lua, #Linux system administration, #bash scripting, #Perl, #AWK, some #Lisp (common, scheme, and emacs), and probably several others I've forgotten to mention.
I am not necessarily looking for something in tech. I just need something stable. I have done everything from software development, to customer support, to factory work, though my current circumstances make in-person work more difficult than remote work. I have been regarded as a hard worker in every job I have ever held.
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Accueil | OVHcloud carrières
OVHcloud Recrute ! Retrouvez l'ensemble des offres d'emploi du groupe dans le monde et postulez directement en ligne.careers.ovhcloud.com
I've been an #Emacs user for like 20 years because there was one thing I needed to do back then that was made easier by elisp, and I just got used to using it. In all that time, I hardly ever tinkered much with the config, save a few minor tweaks it was pretty much stock. I had no strong feelings about Emacs in general, it was just the text editor I'd grown comfortable with.
I've recently been diving into #Lisp and poking around with my Emacs config, and after all these years, I think I'm starting to get the appeal. I am still a proponent of "use the tool that works for you", but I'm personally firmly on team Emacs now.
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S3 E27 The Troubled Teen Industry: CEDU
In this episode of the Cult Vault Podcast, host Kacey speaks with Kari Bunn, a survivor of the troubled teen industry, specifically the CEDU reform school. TheySpreaker
Welp, it's #FountainPen cleaning and re-inking day. #Today I re-learned why I don't use shimmer inks in my #TWSBI Diamond 580. In fact, I usually reserve them exclusively for dip pens.
Time to meticulously clean out a clogged feed. It didn't even make it a paragraph.
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So, I've been taking another run at learning #CommonLisp. The last time I tried, I simply could not wrap my brain around macros. I'm reading the same book again, but this time am a more experienced programmer, and it all just clicked in my head.
I might actually end up enjoying #Lisp after all. I don't know if it'll dethrone #Haskell, but I'm starting to get why people like it.
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@Karsten Johansson Tell that to the author of Practical Common Lisp.
That said, I get it now. It's so stupidly simple when it finally makes sense.
Also, yeah, learning Haskell in the interim helped a lot.
I finally got around to setting up a gopher hole. There's nothing there yet, but hopefully soon there will be.
gopher://sdf.org/1/users/jlamothe
(Apologies to anyone with a screen reader. There will be an accessible version.)
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I recently got a #Sailor #Hokoro dip pen, and much to my chagrin have found that several of my #FountainPen inks do not work well in it. It's almost like the ink refuses to be picked up by the nib/feed.
Has anyone else encountered this? Is there a solution?
Edit: the paper also seems to be a factor
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Just grabbed a recipe off of gopher. It was amazing. No dodging ads. No popups. No cookie settings. Just the recipe I wanted.
This only served to reinforce for me what trash the modern web is.
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@beerw0lf @juliancday
This one works too:
But Kennedy is a good choice and comes with some useful tools.
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gemini://auragem.ddns.net/search/ is another one.
I prefer kennedy when it works, but it had its share of downtimes recently
We made burgers for dinner last night. Now the whole apartment still smells like burgers.
I suppose there are worse things it could smell like.
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S3 E26 Students of Light: Kidnapped in Plain Sight
*TRIGGER WARNING THIS EPISODE CONTAINS THEMES OF CHILD ABUSE. LISTEN WITH CAUTION!!!* In this episode of the Cult Vault podcast, host Kacey speaks with BrendaSpreaker
Neighbour just gave us an earful because the car was parked "crooked". It was off by perhaps 5 degrees.
Seriously?
I moved it and gave her more space, but now I'm crowding out the car to my right.
It's that time again: time to clean my #BaystateBlue #FountainPen. How many times do you think I'll have to run it through the ultrasonic 'till the water stops turning blue?
Time will tell.
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S3 E25 Inside the Bride of Christ Cult
In this episode of the Cult Vault Podcast, host Kacey speaks with Zacch Comfort, creator of the Boiled Frogs podcast, which explores the cult he grew up in. TheSpreaker
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Learning to sew was decidedly one of the best investments of my time in recent memory. I was just able to mend a jacket that I really love. It's perhaps not the neatest stitching job ever, but it's pretty secure again and not in a paricularly visible spot.
The cost? A little bit of thread and about a half hour of my time, versus buying a whole new jacket that I probably wouldn't like as much. I'll take that deal any day.
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fedops ππ
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Cobol devs are definitely in demand.
I did Cobol in my studies. It's quirky but a fairly straightforward language to learn. It's not sexy but solid, and at least you won't be dealing with all the boilerplate Java or csharp junk.
Cobol is only half the deal though. In all likelihood you'll be working in a mainframe environment so may come into contact with Rexx JCL, CICS, and all the other good stuff as well. π
silverwizard
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to silverwizard • •Kingless Coyote
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •I would suggest that putting the effort into learning COBOL isn't worth it.
There are high-paid jobs working in COBOL on legacy 'systems of record' devices that are still critical.
But every year, the number dwindles. AI translation of COBOL may also arise.
My suggestion is that there are also modern languages to learn that have a much better future for you and likely aren't as hard to learn.
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Kingless Coyote • •Shannon Prickett reshared this.
Eric Lawton
in reply to Kingless Coyote • • •@gedvondur
A reading knowledge of COBOL would be useful for understanding of parts needing replacement, especially where requirements and test cases are missing, while putting the most effort into expertise in potential target languages.
Writing COBOL requires fast typing skills. It's very verbose.
"Subtract Expenses from Gross-Revenue giving Profit"
@me
Digital Mark Ξ» βοΈ πΉ π
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Watch @ellyxir learn COBOL:
youtube.com/watch?v=8skE5PTeOWβ¦
And then rethink your choices!
(I only know how to do REXX on IBM mainframes. And it's not pretty.)
- YouTube
www.youtube.comJonathan Lamothe
in reply to Digital Mark Ξ» βοΈ πΉ π • •@Digital Mark Ξ» βοΈ πΉ π @Ellyse I watched the first video (on 2x speed) and while definitely looked painful, it didn't seem that bad.
It's certainly not something I'd be able to pick up right away, but I am twisted enough in the head just to try to do this for fun.
This also probably explains how I ended up in a cult for 12 years. π
Bill Fellows
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Having worked adjacent to 4 different mainframes at this point in my career along with their "modernization" efforts. Reading COBOL, not terrible. Writing it, eh, probably not so bad but I've never done, only had to read and comprehend what it does. And there are non-MFs that provide implementation of COBOL so you can learn on your own time.
The devil is going to be understanding IBM systems "junk": CICS, DASD, DCLGEN, TSO, RACF etc
Judy Anderson
in reply to Bill Fellows • • •@billinkc
What he said. Mainframe basics are more important than COBOL, I'd say.
I work for a company that's doing "Mainframe Modernization" and as a result we have to understand the old crappy non-modern stuff in order to implement new stuff! (Currently my group isn't reimplementing anything based in Cobol. We do Db2 monitoring stuff.)
rocketsoftware.com
rocket.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/rβ¦
(We have AI hype on the front page but really we're just programming. I guess some departments might be doing AI, but I think we're just scared we'll miss the bandwagon. So don't ignore us just for that.)
Rocket Software
Rocket SoftwareJonathan Lamothe likes this.
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Judy Anderson • •Judy Anderson
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •Jonathan Lamothe likes this.
Bill Fellows
in reply to Judy Anderson • • •@nosrednayduj OMG super small world. One of the projects I was on dealt with model 204/m204. We ended up building a real time synchronization between m204 and SQL Server via messaging.
It was going to be a very cool way to modernize the client's data storage while they incrementally switched the front ends.
Pity literal debt caught up to them π₯
William B Peckham
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •