COBOL

I get it. . That's a big deal and a lot of us want to help because hey, we want to make a difference for the better.

Don't waste your time.

You've already heard that COBOL is a dead language, that nobody knows it any more, so on so on, so I won't reiterate that point. But here are a couple other things you should take into consideration -

1. You won't learn COBOL quickly enough to contribute to the solution. People didn't stop learning COBOL because it stopped trending, they stopped because it's a nightmare. Zero modularity. Probably every variable you cast will be global. Not fun, and it will take forever to grind through the class, not including untangling the spaghetti that's actually on these systems to the point that you could contribute. Meanwhile, the government will pay some retired engineer an enormous sum to fix this pile of garbage now because they need a solution quickly, not in 6 months when a handful of people have finally learned the language. Don't ruin his/her payday.

2. If the government (or businesses) catch word that there's a new wave of COBOL engineers entering the field, there will be zero incentive to modernize. Why pay for an overhaul in Java and risk a buggy, delayed deployment when you can just keep the same crap running for free? Who cares if it breaks during the next emergency, because "I probably won't still be in office by then."

3. If you're on this subreddit, then you're probably here because you want to learn skills that will benefit you in the future. It is highly unlikely that COBOL will be a commonly desired skill going forward, especially given all the current bad press. If you want to work on mainframes, great - but C, C++, and Java are probably going to be way more relevant to your future than COBOL.

For your own and our benefit, don't try to learn it.

Edit:

There's some valid conversation happening, so let me clarify -

If you want to learn COBOL just for the sake of learning, be my guest. As long as you realize that it likely won't be relevant to your career, and you aren't going to "fix the government" with it. It seems to me that if you really want to learn a "hard" language that badly, Assembly would be way better option. But that's just me.

Is there any guarantee that Java won't be around in 20 years? No. Is Java more likely to be around then than COBOL? Yes. Nothing is guaranteed - but hedge your bets accordingly.

This subreddit is filled with people who are just starting down the path of CS. We should be guiding them towards learning skills that will be both relevant to their futures and provide a meaningful learning experience that encourages them to go farther. Not letting them walk blindly into a labyrinth of demotivating self-torture that in the end will probably be pointless.

Many banks, insurance companies and large companies still use mainframes and mini computers that use COBOL and other non popular languages.

When these COBOL developers retire and leave work, where are replacements coming from?

I am pretty sure most of the college grads and new developers are learning the popular languages and platforms like Python, Rails, Java, C#/.NET, web development (Angular, React, Vue and all the JS and CSS frameworks), mobile development, game development, desktop development,.. etc. COBOL is not cool or hip to them.

I don't think these mainframes are being phased out fast enough so demand for COBOL developers is still happening. Billions of COBOL lines of code are still in production.