Second Languages Slow Brain Decline

[hollysmom]

37. always so many COBOL programmers to choose from - there's your problem

You look at anyone who can code as being acceptable. There is an art to any language. You have to understand what goes on behind the code. COBOL could be inefficient where you need huge machines to do simple things (and this is what happened when so many untalented people went into the business) or you could code elegantly, understanding what you were doing and making the code portable and self documenting. I always kept the documentation as comments in the code so that the programmers had to update it when they made changes. And if needed, it could be printed out and booked.

Clients would hire me to code, but I was always promoted to designing and mentoring others in how to improve their work to make it self documenting and consistent, even in different languages. No matter what language you use, there is a right and wrong way to code. Efficiency is not the most important, but inefficiency can cripple a system. Lack of maintained documentation, lack of....

You can't blame the language so much as the people who hired and ran projects.

I can not tell you how much trouble I had getting hired when I got older - older women not desirable in programming, One client told me they didn't want to hire me because it would be like trying to manage her mother. But we became friends and after she had to fire all the other consultants she had me conduct the interviews to hire a new staff for her with my unusual tactic of asking questions to see if they understood what they were doing, not just if they knew buzzwords and correct answers.