The skill levels of COBOL programmers vary enormously. The best are very good indeed, but most of them begin better than they end because the shops where they work do not prize programming skills.
They instead prize something called "knowing the business", which too often turns out to be detailed, anecdotal knowledge of how some badly designed application functions after 15 years of ill-considered maintenance. If I were apportioning blame for this situation I should blame IT management rather than these programmers; but to say this is not to say that any large number of COBOL programmers are, qua programmer, very good at what they do. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
