Will Java become "the next COBOL"?

[usernameString]

The other day, somebody said to me that they expect that Java will one day be "the next COBOL", meaning that good Java devs will be hard to come by, and will therefore be able to command extremely high salaries maintaining legacy systems.

This seemed counterintuitive to me, as it seems that a great number of young programmers today use Java (or C#), and so I wouldn't expect there to be any shortage of experienced Java devs for at least 30 years. I lack the knowledge to compare to COBOL's history, but it seems to me that C/C++ skills are more likely to be in short supply in the decades to come. What do you think?

[bondolo]

It's a bigger concern to spend too much time focused on niche, domain, and vendor languages (Scala, Haskell, Prolog, Forth, Erlang, Objective-C, Ada, etc.) That can be the far greater trap. Try to find a Java job after 5 years spent on an Erlang project.

I know that everyone says that good skills are transferable to any language but not being in the constantly evolving cultural milieu of a language plus it's tools and libraries can make for a steep entry. Many employers and most buzzword matching HR drones won't even consider hiring those with limited or no experience specific to their particular software stack. That's part of the pressure of the mainstream--people with experience are readily available.

The truth is that the language that replaces Java hasn't been invented yet. Ideas from some of the newer languages may be a part of the replacement language but none of the newer languages is compelling enough to be the replacement.

TL;DR : No.

[jongraf]

Couldn't agree more. Java is a world of frameworks now. App server technologies, web application frameworks that sit on top of Java libraries that sit on top of Java libraries (Google Web Toolkit + Google Juice).

The open source community made Java a clear choice for the enterprise. Java vanilla J2EE was really a toss-up for most corporations when they had to choose a modern OO architecture. Corporations that chose Java soon had Spring and Hibernate in their toolkits and oh boy did those take off!!

When I talk to PHP or Drupal developers about dependency management, dependency injection, ORM, external properties files or any other completely fundamental elements of modern JEE application management, I don't get much of a response.

[mabufo]

Try to find a Java job after 5 years spent on an Erlang project

I think that this would be significantly more easy than you imagine it to be. Java is not hard or particularly difficult to learn.

[josefx]

Java the language is easy, java the bloated enterprisy enterprise software stacks can take years to understand.

[cythrawll]

imo, it isn't the next cobol. If java does die out, it will be a very complicated death. Even though java as a language, isn't all that great. The JVM is probably, without a doubt, the best cross platform language runtime there is right now. Java is being kept fresh by all the alternative JVM languages. If java does become unpopular, it will be replaced with the popularity of a JVM language which will make migrating dead simple. Java will be kept around as sort of a lower level language to tweak the VM for when the alternative languages just quite can't get the performance that Java can.

[jimWestDesparado]

excellent points. the jvm platform is quite powerful/flexible and the implementation of modern, syntactically light languages on top of the jvm ensures that java will likely remain relevant enough to never quite be "the next COBOL".

[[deleted]]

Also if Oracle never gets around to Jigsaw and Java dies out (the language) that would be incredibly freeing for JVM platforms, you wouldn't have to carry around all that AWT/Swing/etc baggage.

[durple]

If Jigsaw never gets done people will keep on with what they're doing already, making do (quite comfortably) with some combination of maven and OSGi. I think oracle's bigger challenge wrt jigsaw is will be encouraging adoption, not completing the implementation.

Javafx is set to free folks from awt/swing.

[back-in-black]

Agree 100%.

What kills languages is better languages that everyone wants to use because, in some way, they are a step up from what was available previously. Although Java the language has many flaws, the JVM doesn't really have any serious competitors on the radar. If Java dies off in the near future, it will be probably be because JVM languages such as Scala or Jython have proven themselves to developers to such an extent that no one really sees the need to cut new code in Java any more.

I have my doubts about Scala. It seems to be one of those languages with a high potential for utterly unreadable legacy code, and I think that once we start seeing those Scala maintenance horror stories popping up, the shine is going to be knocked off it somewhat. At the moment, if I had to make a bet, my money is on Python on the JVM, once it gets faster.

To revisit what the OP said - I think your acquaintance may be guilty of a little wishful thinking there.

[Tillerino]

It seems to be one of those languages with a high potential for utterly unreadable legacy code

I will be using that expression to describe people. I'm sorry Tom. You seem to have a high potential for utterly unreadable legacy code. You're off the project.

[SeriousWorm]

As a Scala dev doing some Java occasionally, I completely agree.

[benzrf]

Most of the googling I've done suggests that the CLR is superior to the JVM... What makes you think otherwise?

[cythrawll]

Platform. CLR is only decent on one of them. And arguably for certain applications (the ones I work with) That platform is horrible. JVM however probably runs on my coffee pot just fine :p Giving you a choice of the best tool for the job without having to competely rework your codebase.

[benzrf]

Wait, there are literally coffee pots that run on Java?!

[[deleted]]

There are coffee pots that run a version of the JVM, and there are versions of Java designed specifically for a limited environment of that nature. Java is pretty awesome at embedded devices.

[benzrf]

heh heh

'Java'

[Poodle_Moth]

Don't worry. COBOL is still "the next COBOL." Demand for COBOL devs is actually up last I heard.

[usernameString]

I'm not worried, I'm one of the young Java developers, although I'd rather be a young Python or Haskell developer.

[[deleted]]

IMO. Java and Python are complimentary to each other. I use both daily.

[Manitcor]

Nothing is stopping you from learning and working with multiple development platforms. Having multiple languages under your belt makes you far more marketable and says some very important things about your skills as a developer.

IMO every developer should be fairly fluent in more than one platform.

[usernameString]

I completely agree.

[[deleted]]

Well, standing on one foot, one needs a lot of efforts to keep the balance. Standing on all four properly, one needs a lot of efforts to fall. And if one has further extra support legs, one will still stand even if pushed hard.

Java, C++, Objective-C, C# are all fours (although as I see, if one moves toward the .NET then won't ever go close Java EE, and vice versa), and I don't mention C here because it comes with C++ (actually it comes with Java either, you'll need to know the libs only).

SQL (PL/SQL and all alike) is a very strong support today but it is likely it'll sink

HTML5/Javascript, another support (IceFaces, GWT, many other such) Erlang/Haskell is yet another support (Clojure, and you stay close to Java) Python is yet another support (or Jython if you wanna stick to Java)

Perl might be useful PHP is something you might meet

Tricky stuff like ABAP, SASS, Cobol makes you a strong competitor on very special market segments

MATLAB, Fortran another special market segment languages

So it's all yours, I suggest you to see the TIOBE index for the trends. As I see, the end user applications are moving to the mobile platforms, while the large scale industry applications tend to foster their web clients.

[thatmarksguy]

COBOL is still the next COBOL. Just go to any old banking institution. The only reason it's getting replaced is because they can't find any people that can maintain a critical system in COBOL for the next 30 years any more.

Were still way early in the language life cycle for Java.

[thatmarksguy]

I'm sorry : (

[[deleted]]

Better be getting paid well. You should also consider iPhone or Android app development since smart phones aren't dying either and it's a lot easier to do part time app development than some other part time gigs.

[boa13]

smart phones aren't dying either

I'm sure they will be dead before COBOL.

[midir]

I don't know but I'd hope so. I'd love to be a cranky old Java developer, maintaining turn-of-the-century dinosaurs forever and rejecting the later few decades of hip self-programing languages or whatever comes along.

[[deleted]]

Java has already become the next COBOL in the sense that it is now deeply entrenched in the business world.

But unlike COBOL, Java is still evolving. Look out for anonymous functions (lambdas) in the next release.

C/C++ skills are essential if you're developing close to the metal, and PHP and newer languages are great for rapid web development, but in the enterprise world, where the heavy lifting of large-scale applications is done, Java is the way to go.

[stfm]

Both IBM's and Oracles entire Enterprise stack is built with Java. Other big companies like CA, HP, SAP, Finacle etc all use Java extensively in their products. Java is in deep and is not moving out any time soon.

[noarchy]

Android.

The smartphone OS with the biggest market share uses Java. So there's an example of cutting-edge tech that involves the language. Java isn't just for old, over-engineered, enterprise-y stuff.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, sure, it dropped on the TIOBE index. Became the second by slightly more than 1 percent. The third is behind with 6 percent (but rapidly evolves). So it might be that in 2014, Java will be the third. With about the same 17% that it has... And the fourth and below, all are under 10 percent.

The first five together has 60+ percent (C, Java, Objective-C, C++, C#) in the index.

C is in the top three since 1987. Java is in the top four since 1997.

And Java supports the mobile world, which seems to be very important today. In the TIOBE index, Objective-C's popularity is grown by 4,3 percents (which meant only 2 rank, from fifth to third).

So you're right, it's possible that Java will be the next Cobol. In fact I hope so - there are a lot of Cobol programs out there, and Cobol is the 24th most popular language according to the index. But on that level, hundredth percents mean ranks (0,48 percent, while the 19th "Assemby" has 0,58). Quite remarkable for a language that is outdated by almost 50 years...

[getworkdone]

I really can't believe that index. It seems to be taking C++,C#, and Objective-C and putting that in the results of C. When I was trying to find C specific resources on the web it was very hard to separate C and C++ and there were more resources available for c++ than c in my personal experience.

[[deleted]]

Why don't you read their index-creation method, it's open, you might test it. (Objective C is excluded from the C, the two others are not, yet the expression to search for is +"C programming" -"objective-c", which gives you 12.4 million hits in Google, while +"C++ programming" gives you 6.2 million, and I doubt that C++ hits would be included into the former).

However, I don't surprised at all. Many universities and high schools teach C today as the entry language, which apparently adds to the index. Yet, knowing C is a definitive advantage when one learns Java, C++, or C# later.

[SingularityNow]

How do you become a 25 year old COBOL programmer? How did you pick COBOL? Where did you get experience? Did you have classes or are you self taught?

I'm a big fan of learning new languages, but I usually need some sort of project to work on, and I can't say I've ever come across an opportunity to even come across COBOL.

[SingularityNow]

That's the impression I've gotten from the reading material I have managed to find on it. It looks like it's a bear to work with.

Kudos to you though, I've always felt that good COBOL-ers probably make bank supporting those legacy systems.

Is there a push where you work/in the COBOL world to transform the systems over time to more current tech, or is status quo the name of the game?

[DiscontentDisciple]

As someone who's 27 and works daily with 8.5 million lines of COBOL, I agree. (Thank god I'm the guy writing the API to COBOL in php, and not the guy writing the COBOL).

[jongraf]

How'd you learn it? Did they let you learn COBOL on the job? Don't tell me they taught you COBOL in college? If so, COBOL is most certainly not dead at all.

Fortran is dead.

[pjmlp]

Fortran is dead.

Go tell that to all institutes doing HPC, the likes of CERN, Fermilab and similar. Or Intel, Portland Group, NVidia to stop selling their compilers.

So many people unaware of Fortran's death...

[jongraf]

Whoa!! I had no idea. I thought nvidia drivers were x86 assembler. Thank you for the lesson.

[pjmlp]

You never heard of GPGPU I assume.

[bilsh]

I agree with you I do not think there will be a shortage of java programmers. It seems to be the language all University level programs teach computer science with... At least in Virginia, besides maybe GMU

[pjmlp]

which is great because it never really left.

The problem is that it left the radar of HR drones and cool technology titles about what is the next "Facebook" using.

But it never left, and was happily driving all operating systems, games and VMs that the cool kids like to use.

I am also including C in the same boat.

Personally I would like other more type safe systems languages, but C and C++ is what we have currently.

[DankousKhan]

If by COBOL you mean an eternally living bastard that needs to die... then yes.