Since I've never looked into COBOL seriously I'd like to have some examples of that large class of problems C++ and VB can't handle, it sounds interesting (no irony here).

Regardless of this point: bear in mind that many businesses simply don't have COBOL around anymore, so yes, you'll be going for a niche. Personally I consider that to be a bad start of a career.

Just my 2 cents, -gjb-

Update:
My measure for COBOL's "evolutionary success" is the number of job ads in Belgian publications that require COBOL skills vs. those that require C++/Java. Moreover, I don't think COBOL is part of the curriculum of any CS education in Belgium.

Another point of interest: a former colleague of mine who has a degree in physics managed to get a job done in COBOL without too much trouble, but he'd still be hard pressed to do anything OO related. The scope of C++ is more general than that of COBOL, which means that one should get in touch with a broader range of concepts and ideas while studying it.

A very important point made by Elian: one is much more motivated to study when something is interesting and the typical COBOL application might be kind of dull.

In reply to Re: Re: Which language would be most helpful? by gjb
in thread Which language would be most helpful? by mrpilot

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