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What's the dumbest reason you've learned a programming language? (programming.dev)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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[–] 17 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

I wanted to see what the COBOL job market looked like. So I learned the superficial basics of COBOL in a day or two, just so I wouldn't be a complete fraud when I put it into my linkedin profile as a skill to see what happens.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    How did that turn out for you?

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Didn't get a single reqeust, so this had less impact than expected. Thought there was more old rusty companies looking for a non-retired engineer.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago*

    Yeah I think that's mostly a myth. When I looked up salaries they were definitely good (for programming; amazing for the average person), but not "I would write COBOL for that" good.

    There aren't really that many old COBOL systems around. I think it's mostly just over-reported because you can write an article about how some government department still uses COBOL but you can't write about one that switched to Java.

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