Blast From the Past: The Future of COBOL – The Open Mainframe Ep. 17

you hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the open Mainframe. The open Mainframe is a monthly video series produced by us here at Tech strong text on TV in partnership with our friends at the open Mainframe project part of the Linux Foundation. And we've been doing it now.

Oh over a year almost maybe a year and a half and every month. We explore a new topic of relevance or some news. Happenings of what's going on in the open Mainframe World, which is a pretty diverse and ever expanding World.

It seems this year's. Oh, excuse me. This month's show is titled Cobalt one our past present and future and I, you know after being informed by one of our panel members, I feel obliged to say that look at a recent open Mainframe.

A conference which I think was in Philadelphia a couple months ago. There was a session by a similar name discussing, you know, some of what we're going to discuss today, but not all of it. And you know, unfortunately if you weren't at the conference you may not have caught it but not to worry if you're watching this.

You'll have a great chance to get caught up and more. Yeah, Alan the slides are available and leave a recording of that session are available as well. So absolutely encourage people to get up on the open Mainframe project but website.

So yeah. Yeah, I wanted to say that off the bat, but let me let me introduce you to our panel today because they actually represent the the working group or the Cold War working group as part of open Mainframe project lending Foundation. We're happy as heck to have them here with us.

Let me first introduce you to Misty Decker Misty spoke up about the the panel in Philly. And of course Misty's been a guest a few times on our show for various topics, but not be to have you back Misty. I hope all is well.

Oh definitely. Thank you. It's always a delight Allen.

How about a little background to share with our audience? over 30 years and I am The director of product marketing at microfocus and I do a lot with Mainframe modernization which includes COBOL and bringing Cobalt to the latest and greatest Technologies. I also serve as the chair of the new Mainframe modernization working group for the open Mainframe project and I'm on the governing board for the OMP.

So I'm a little busy. Yeah, and why didn't here great to have you back on this the next up another repeat panel member on our team. He's the academic or one of the academies in the group.

It's Cameron called cam say, I think I've his family pronounces it can I get that right? Absolutely. Get out good to be with I I try to give a little background, but you can do better than me.

Would you mind sharing with our audience? Yeah. Yeah.

My name is Cameron Seay I probably hell from Durham, North Carolina. I've been in academic since 2004. I was an it for 21 years before that.

I currently served with Misty as on the open Mainframe project governing board. I'm an Adjunct professor East Carolina University teaching Mainframe. I've taught main frame at five universities, you know, I'm very active in this space and I enjoy it so glad to be always good to be with this body.

All right. Here we are. I don't know if I'd call him or Gods.

But okay, I'll go with it kept. Our next time actually our third panel member is Margaret Hall and Margaret. I'm gonna let you kind of give your background if it's okay with you, of course.

I'm Dr. Magie Hall. I'm also researcher.

I have been in Academia for about 10 years. So I'm nice and in the tower at this point, but I'm not a main framer. I am Mainframe with Jason live college.

I run a Workforce Development research project that is looking to bolster than Mainframe Talent market and that's where I come into this project. And I can't see it clearly because my eyes aren't that good. But which university do you are you with there?

And oh, yeah. Sorry. I forgot to put my I'm at the business and economics University of the enter or the Vu Vienna.

Actually, thank you so much. And then last but certainly not least is my co-host here on the open Mainframe project. So he does every one of these with me I we drag them in John Mertic.

He's also the Ed or general manager for the working for the open Mainframe project from Linux Foundation John. How are you? I am doing excellent.

Alan excited to kind of talk about a Cobalt which is something you don't get every single person off the street coming to say but there's there's some really cool stuff coming in here. And I know I know this is a space you have a lot of interest in in as well. So I'm excited for this conversation.

You know, I'll tell you something guys. com since we first published in March of 2014. So eight years now.

I'm going on almost nine. Do you know the single biggest article in terms of views we've ever had. Was around the modernization of cobalt.

com darn it and but yet it gives you an idea of you know there there's a lot of people out there who are interested in this and do care and and you know, it's a it's a pretty popular subject. I started folks. Let's kind of.

Lay a foundation the Cobalt working group. What's its chart or what does it do? You know, what?

Can we tell the audience about it? That was definitely him is our check can is our chair? Okay.

Well, yeah the chair this I'm just kind of a de facto coach here, but and Maggie you become a mainframer by hanging out with mainframers. That's what you're doing. That's how you become amazing.

So you've been a simulated you are affected me. So Alan this idea for the working group, I think and Derek and I never really can get clear about the cards of this the chronology of it, but I'm pretty sure it was his idea. I'm pretty sure it was started about email from Derek Brittany me about that.

I think this was a good idea and I immediately because it's so soon was even as soon as he said it was great idea that you know, I didn't but I don't think I came up. I may have I may have but I don't think I did I think with Derek's idea but immediately we put it together and he won we had kind of different objectives in initially. I wanted to get cobalt back in the academic curriculum, right because it's not there.

So that was my overarching go Derek wanted to do more of a recording system Mission fact finding and that Gathering um, and in the kind of an organized respectable way, which I thought was Splendid idea. So our first real tasks was filtered plitsky had a Survey that he was going to give to the industry that was about Cobalt about Cobalt but it was about covid has covid interfered with your Cobalt development your Cobalt processes. Well, we took that idea so that's a great idea.

We want to expand it. So we fleshed out some questions about 15 or 20 questions that we sent out the industry about their cobal use, right and we got 272 respondents now, we did some very conservative extrapolations richer on this project Rich are big Britain Misty Decker couple other people that have very good analytical schools. So, you know, we know how to run data we know how to look at data.

So we came up with some very conservative assumptions and estimates and extrapolations and we came up with a figure we would come with a 200 plus lots of cobal out there because I'd heard that I'd heard that that thing you kicked around for years, but nobody could validated. I went nobody can find out where that Well that came from so we said okay, we're gonna try to establish it. So by our data, it's a pretty good number and by Misty's about Microsoft focuses later of survey.

It's a little bit low. So that's what we are. Now this current iteration and Maggie and I've been knowing each other.

We've been working on another project together and we came with the idea of doing a scholarly study on this stuff getting it into the scholarly literature where it is not been I'm an academic so I know that there's a possibility of scouting literature about COBOL and cobal use so she did that. So that's where we are now. So that's that brings us up the date.

There's a lot of gaps I left in there, but that's the big picture in the interest of time, you know, and I can only support cameras saying even in already in 2014 about the academic Community was saying, hey look only one in four universities in the states are teaching coal. This is a problem and we've done exactly no things since then so, Absolutely. Misty Yeah.

No, I first of all I want to say that. There has been a lot of work done but by IBM by broadcom by these vendors, it hasn't been really industry-wide industry agnostic until the open Mainframe projects got really involved and and I did a keynote at the OMP Summit about the current state of cobal education. It's also available on YouTube nice little plug there.

It's nice and short too because they made me do an entire hour-long keynote in 20 minutes. So it's it's really punchy. There's has been a lot of work done in this space, but it just really hasn't seemed to move the needle and you know, the the research done by Vance and born sponsored by microphocus that came out about a year ago found eight hundred billion lines of code.

It's massive the amount of cobal that's out there but it's really generally stable code. So it flies under the radar because it just works and they don't need to do anything with it. But that survey found that I'm going to throw a few numbers actually if you don't mind I prepared.

Yeah. 83% of the people working on cobal right now believe that those applications are going to continue to persist long after they retire. And 92% of those organizations say that those cobal applications are absolutely strategic to their business.

And 41% So not quite half say that most new business projects need integration into their current cobal applications. So so even the the fancy fancy stuff that gets in the paper all the time the AI or whatever still has to integrate with these cobal applications that they're not just shoved off in the corner and Abandoned and forgotten. That's why these code continues to grow and why these applications continue to remain strategic 92% say that their strategic they are absolutely the heart of most of these large organizations and that's what we're trying to do is is bring awareness, you know, when something just kind of works you forget about it.

And it takes people like us. To say hey take a look at this solid Bedrock this strong Foundation that you've been walking on all this time. And that actually leads us to Maggie's research which I'm super excited about Maggie.

Why don't you tell us the unique angle that you took on this? So my interest in the community is fully in a supportive role. How can I possibly make all of these projects that I'm working on?

Supportive of the Caldwell Community. So the question that we asked the last time around was Why not Cobalt in a lot of ways why why would you advise somebody not to jump into COBOL as a career? So whatever your major misconceptions basically so we call this the Mystic conception survey and we sent it out to the entire group.

And we ask them to give us ranked five up to five reasons of why they would not recommend Cobalt and we came about with a really really nice selection of answers, but there were sort of five big ones four big ones maybe that we want to talk about. And the first one you would expect that actually that it was cobal is dead. And it wasn't cobal is dead.

It's in fact that COBOL is the major can misconception about the community is that Cobalt is outdated. So call is there to definitely came up it came up actually just just after that but the major misconception that people here and that they is a reason that they would not recommend a colleague or a junior with Junior person coming up. But into the Cobalt field is that cobal is such an outdated.

Code that it's such an outdated technology to go into the Mainframe that it's not worth doing anymore. And that just goes flies straight into the face of what Misty was just talking about right? It's literally the opposite of what's on the ground what's happening what we're seeing an industry today.

So we on the one hand know that cobal is this absolutely strategic foundational and critical business operation on the other hand. We're telling ourselves. We're telling other people that it's not worth doing and as an academic I find that super problematic.

From you as the industry folks, but also I found it problematic for my own Community because that's why and that when I was saying that we've done absolutely nothing to make that more specific. We've not continued teaching Cobalt. We've not even introduced new courses that stubborn number of one out of four universities are teaching this language staying there and that's not moving.

And actually I know of a couple of universities that would have explicitly told me they're not going to introduce it because one reason or the other So that should be really concerning because you have to go to if you're not in one of cams programs, right or if you're not up in Poughkeepsie where you can go to Marist. It's really hard to get a formal program. I think there's one program in Michigan maybe that teaches.

Sorry, and then we'll go into the other ones the other three reasons that people have common misconceptions are they List? The common misconceptions about Coldwell being is that it's really hard to learn. which again is one of those cheeky items if if you're not used to something everything's everything that's new is hard, but Cobalt was really meant for people who aren't computer scientists as a business language and if you have Somebody who can read up to the seventh or 8th grade level you have somebody who can read Cobalt because the verbs and the syntax are still similar to written English that it was done that way purposefully for people who don't get computer science training, right?

Well in 1959 and 1962 when these things are starting to run out you didn't get computer science training for secretaries. That was it wasn't a good investment at that point. So it had to be simple enough that anyone could pick it up.

And that hasn't changed but it's this giant misconception that people see themselves of course cobal is dead is that was the third most common even though the rather the opposite is true and the last one and this one is the way it really hurts. My heart is that people think that a big misconception about COBOL is that it is a bad career choice. And that's completely the opposite of what I'm doing in my project.

I'm sponsored by the National Science Foundation in the United States to work on Workforce Development for the Mainframe sector. So when I hear not your do not go into the Mainframe do not go into Cobalt. Don't learn those language.

It's not worth it because it's a bad creature. It's gonna hurt your career. Oh, it just doesn't want it doesn't make any sense.

So up doesn't get it. And it really it hurts my heart because there's there's never a bad time to learn a critical language and with all of the rest of the misconceptions that we have. We're really we're shooting yourself in the foot a little bit here is the academic Community, but but also in the industry Community, we're making it we're We're creating some barriers here too our own success in having the perpetuating these sort of misconceptions that we have.

I don't disagree with anything. You said Maggie. I mean look.

Here here's the fact I've been in. Tech a couple of years myself and you know, there's no doubt that we suffer from shiny trinket syndrome in technology. Everybody wants to know what and work on.

What's the latest and greatest especially this time of year, right? My inbox is flooded with every vendor and every University and every person telling me would you like to hear what I think the my predictions are for 2023 are because everyone has that crystal ball and they all want to be on top of the next new. Sad the next shiny new thing the next Magic Bullet and and in doing so.

You know, most of them have the attention span. They can't concentrate on more than one thing at a time for a lot of them. And and so you tend to throw out the babies with the bathwater and yesterday's garbage.

not recognizing this tea is you pointed I right from the gecko which is You know added this study how much of the world still runs on cobo-based applications? We found it out early in the pandemic all of a sudden we had a run on unemployment. In New Jersey or whatever the heck it was and and we we need to update that unemployment.

system so people get checks and could make claims and can get and put food on the table. And man, we didn't have we don't have enough COBOL programmers to to do the update. So people suffer.

Well, the truth on that one Alan is that it actually wasn't coval was not the issue. it wasn't I mean there's a certain state so I know the people who work on the system and he told me the inside scoop. It was actually a um, the browser the website couldn't handle the traffic and then once they saw that problem their Network couldn't handle the traffic and once they saw that problem then they needed to update their cobal application.

But the initial issue when they made the call for cobal programmers. It wasn't it wasn't the issue. So I think that's that's evident of how cobal everybody thinks.

It's you know a unique problem, but it's not it's the same problems that you have anywhere else you just latch on to that to feed into your existing biases against cobal and justify it. Right? So what you're saying is it should have been a call for like job or PHP programmers instead.

It should have been a call or not. Sure maintaining your applications in the first place. Let's go.

It's infrastructure and capacity. I'm sorry. Yes it is.

It is and and being prepared for a dynamic environment, right? Absolutely. Yeah, I'm saying that all completely ingest by the way, but it is it is a very valid point so, you know There are hundreds of programming languages out there many of the ones that are most.

Popular out there have been around for decades yet, you know from what I can tell. Cobal's the only one that sort of gets singled out in this sort of. Unhappy camp in this sort of like this is bad.

Like we've had sea applications that have probably been running for two or three decades, you know, we have you know stuff in various functional languages that are probably that the couple stuff is good gets called out. Why is that like what is what is your take of why that is? God no, no first hand up.

I think goes It goes to Misty. But Maggie, you're up next I've written on this one extensively and it's a big passion of mine. One of my other Hobbies is diversity and diversity and inclusion and unconscious bias.

And one of the talks that I do at conferences is called unconscious bias affects Technologies as well as people and the history of cobal as Maggie explained. It's it's easily readable and understandable by the lay person. It was meant for secretaries and accountants with no background to be able to create business applications.

You now get an industry of professionally trained programmers. There's an unconscious feeling that they're better than that that they're better than Cobalt because C is more complicated. It gives you the feeling that it's more sophisticated and more worthy of your talents.

my opinion I I will tell you from a security perspective. between C and C sharp None of the developers. I know want to be developing in that anymore.

I mean, there's also all these new modern languages that they all sort of, you know gravitate towards but I mean those languages have I would say cobolts. It's stood the test of time much better. Then maybe see or C sharp has Maggie you had your hand up second.

I promised you a chance, so I got to turn it over to you. That's okay. I would like think I can bring the two points together supposed to how we view cobal but also to its ability to stand the test of time.

I'll go back to the fact that this is a business language and that's really squarely where I see this this problem that John pointed out coming up. Computer science languages are good for computer scientists and we train computer scientists in University and they go off and they create computer science right business languages don't have that same level of prestige. So business language, like call wall is always going to be just a little bit second class in an opinion of a computer scientist, even if that's really not true the applications outlive their development teams if it stands the test of time A language that is highly readable highly accessible highly trainable and also continues to do its job.

Well, which is of think a point that his keeps coming back up with all of us. Shouldn't be so poorly viewed but it is definitely seen as out of touch. It's seen as a marker out of demand skills.

And a lot of that comes back to this is not one of ours, right? This is a business language. This is in a computer science language and that's just mind-boggling in some ways.

But when I see coming out of my I tend to be in technology schools. That's really what I see coming out of the colleagues. I just point um It's in and I would like some some feedback from the panel about this because I've never really been able to figure this one out.

There's no logic behind it. But to the extent it Cobalt is taught. It is taught much more frequently in computer science departments than it is in college is a business that I don't understand that because cobal is a business technology.

And I don't I don't agree with that. I've seen that's what I've seen is that I it's true these Carolina. Okay, so this interesting because when I led IBM's academic Initiative Program, right and we had universities around the world.

It was usually the information systems. That departments that would sponsor and support COBOL and I struggled to get the computer science department. So it was pretty rare.

I had multiple deans of computer science departments, even after I explained to them the importance of the language the value of the language the importance to their business sponsors their local businesses that they try to build a pipeline of talent for I brought those businesses in to talk to the Deans of computer science. They still declined to teach it and when they were being honest with me, they would say I just don't enjoy it. Yeah and see I can understand it.

Now. I know two of those programs you work with it at Arkansas and at Robin Morris, they would definitely School business, but that because was because they had a critical mass of main right people there. I'm telling you from what I've seen Misty in the schools that work with I've worked at five universities the the College of Business never understand that it's business technology in more cases.

I've taught in computer science departments. I started Tennessee State at all corn and an auntie. I'm in College engineering.

I'm not in School of Business and in North Carolina Central now North Carolina in the School of Business. I don't understand. I know I understand what you're saying.

But now I'll tell you what I can I can support that rationale to this extent. You can have a legitimate computer science program that is valid and accredited and an outstanding program without ever mentioning the word Mainframe. You can do that with the computer science department.

I would submit to you you cannot have a complete discussion of business technology. And information technology without discussing Cobalt. You can't the conversations incomplete.

Is incomplete why that's not commonly understood. I don't I don't know. But to me that's factual.

It is business technology. You can you can you can exclude it from engineering and computer science and it with no problems. Definitely program.

You cannot exclude from Information Systems Department in my opinion. And the logic I'm has a operates in a weird space. It's halfway between business and computer science.

So it'll depend on which university you're at where it actually is housed and in some of the programs you'll get it. It's always at the University of Nebraska where I was previous to this. It was in the College of information Science and Technology, whereas in other programs, you're gonna find in the business school and that's probably the split that we're seeing there.

Yeah, and you know, I want to keep it on topic because but this is this is related. you When well I lost my I lost my trainers I either come back to me. I lost my train of thought I agree with you.

That's where I'm at right now. Right and one of classes I have I have in my circuit is cybersecurity. So how do I manage cybersecurity?

I'm not teaching business students to be cyber Engineers, right that's insanity, but they're gonna need to know how to run these teams. And if you can't even approach your main frame and we all know it's there. If you can't even approach your Mainframe, if you don't have a good common sense about it and what it takes to keep things living your cyber security efforts are out the window in the front of the very first space.

Yeah, I think this is a really interesting train of thought but it kind of goes to what the the next round of research is. Right? The next round of research is really looking at that.

How do we understand those those misconceptions? Right? So so how what is the future of COBOL everything that we've really done is um, we looked at the past and then the Vance and born survey looked at, you know, what people's attitudes for the future growth of it is but what we haven't really dived into is these attitudes where do they come from?

What what is the future of cobal and I think that's what this new research is intended to do, right? Yes. Maybe that's a good segue to dig into this new research.

So let's kind of expand on it. Like what is what is the goal? What are what are you hoping to learn?

What is the message? You're hoping is conveyed or talk about the market because again, it sounds like there's been also some various surveys done by various vendors, but this is for my knowledge is one of the first vendor neutral style of surveys done. So kind of expand on it like tell us about this work.

I think the main idea came from the fact that most of the the really rigorous invested in research was funded by individual vendors and the results. No big surprise pretty much confirmed the theory going in and what the vendor was looking to get the value of the open Mainframe project is that it's not beholden to any individual technology or point of view. And so to get that agnostic industry view I think is really important and As you've heard we all have opinions.

We all have talked to each other about what the misconceptions are around COBOL and my opinion of unconscious bias, and you know the research that Maggie found. Is all based on talking to us and so we're hoping to use the force and the network of the Linux Foundation to get a broader industry understanding of the perceptions of Koval outside of the Mainframe in Cobalt space as well as what the future of it is and maybe even a little bit of I'd love to see if it includes some some message testing of what is it those facts are that are compelling and convincing and and could actually change the direction of the way non Mainframe non-cobal people you this technology and careers therein. It's pretty ambitious as far as I'm concerned.

so this is not you know, not sponsored by any one vendor. It's sponsored by the open Mainframe project and the Linux Foundation who's actually doing the research have we enlisted a third party research firm? When does it start?

How do people participate when will we see answers? in no particular order God this is gonna be through the what it called the Linux search Yep, early research Department. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's the Linux foundation's research arm itself. Good and Johnny, that's the I think it's Steven's last name.

Yes, even Hendrick and yeah free Carter. Yeah, okay and As far as funding it we're fundraising for it right now. We're looking we're looking for sponsors because it is going to be pretty comprehensive.

And if we can promote John through this where where anybody listening can get their organization to sign on as a supporter. I think the information that comes back is going to be really valuable across not just the vendor industry, but also the end customers. Matter of fact anybody with a cobal application?

I think this should be useful research for them John. What are you doing at two today right after this meeting? What are you doing it to?

Right. I have a feeling you're signing me up for something. Yeah your signs up.

I know your days are pretty book but it just came to me when Missy said that um, I'm having a call with about 25 industry Executives at two and be glad to let you make a five minute pitch for funding there. If you saw incline sure that's good the record now, so he said now, okay. I'm not interested in your money.

No. Like for those people hold on a sec for those people not on camps call if you are interested in potentially sponsoring sponsoring and being part of this great project, please do if you go to the open Mainframe project is part of Linux foundation's website. You can contact them there.

And and the appropriate people will reach out to you because there's a more the merrier kind of thing. Right the the why did the net that we cast the better the results will be and by all means we should do it. Is there a time frame for this Maggie?

Or miss the excuse me. Yeah. Now this is unfortunately not mine.

You know, I got you you did your research site. Misty is there a time frame on this one? I think it pretty much comes down to when we have the money we will do the research.

We are very much. Hoping that we will hit our Target dollar amount. Within the next few months so that we can get this research done in fy23 in 2023.

It's it's a massive project and it's it's an important one. I don't want it to delay for two years or whatever. That would be really yeah.

failing to be impactful Well, what happens is it a two-year frame so much can change is think back where we were two years ago. and can't remember that far so much has changed. I think it was still covid.

Tell you the truth. It was still covid times right since 2020 around February of 2020. So almost three years now.

anyway Whenever we do and hopefully we'll get this research started soon. I think it'll really be an enlightening. Think of it.

Let me Maggie. Let me propose something to you. So while the situation in the US seems to be cloudy, no pun intended regarding Copa, you know, I know for a fact like let's say in India and the subcontinent there.

They're churning alcohol program. Is that churning out people who have You know Cobalt. Experience expertise, whatever you want to call it.

Do they know something? We don't or what's going on? Why?

when you have systems that train for in demand skills, you'll tend to see those skills trained in Surplus and it is absolutely true that this skill set is in demand the the trick of the thing with the Indian subcontinent is the relative scarcity of visas for These types of programmers so they're being relatively overtrained for the the opportunities that they have. And that that's a little bit of the trick. So I'm based in the EU.

We have the same problem that you see in the states or it's a little cloudy as we say. India completely different Pakistan completely different which unless the large multinational firms are going Outsourcing wise then they still don't there's still a mismatch in the market. They they are a bunch of talented people, but we can't hire them where we need them to be.

Mmm, it's always that's frustrating always and Alan I think that is more like cut like an a cultural thing and and a societal thing because the the universities I'm in contact with in India. They don't teach Cobalt anymore frequently to me. We do in the universities himself, but in terms of the population for some reason they have access to more training programs.

I don't know what that is. I think the same thing is true in Europe now, I tell you I am seeing a almost a seismic Awareness of this in Corporate America today people are contacting me almost on a daily basis. Where can they find Cobalt?

Where can they find Cobalt? So I am seeing that now they're willingness to undertake what they want me to do is microwave them some developers and just send them resumes. That's what they want me to do.

I've explained to them that the only thing I've seen work in this situation over and over again is for you to build cohort cohorts internally over a period of years and grow your own. That is the only feasible solution because if you are four or five people this year, you got the same problem next year got the same problem Nation so that I'm not seeing enough long-term thinking I am seeing it in terms of the federal government and and Maggie. I think your project is gonna get get a lot of notice because people are looking for that kind of scale.

They look IRS needs to train 600 developers last week. Last week so yeah 42 and about a year. Yeah.

Yeah, but that is good. But that's the that's the real gist of it. Right?

I need hundreds now and I'm turning out dozens over the course of a year and and you know, and so what happens is that Gap continues, right? The Gap goes like this not like this. Yeah.

And so you watch the long changes that I saw this I've been doing this is 2005 and immediately. I was certain that people were gonna catch on before now because it's just glaring And and my Bugaboo and and my colleagues on the call know this Alan you will know if you taught me long. My pet.

Peeve is the hbcus the historically black colleges in America. This is an opportunity that they have just slept on because I've taught this technology at four hbcus and each all of them. The story's exactly the same you attract companies to that campus be all corn State be a Tennessee State wherever companies that never recruited there before they come your campus because you're teaching Mainframe, but guess what you need dba's and Network people and project managers too.

So if you're mainframers are good your other people and that's the way and HBCU have completely sleptness. It drives me crazy. Yeah, I see it from the I'd like I see it from the other universities too.

It's it's not just it's you. So this is example that I know of one of the large credit cards, so there's a community college system to have the class pays for the credentials it pays for the lecture themselves to give the give a class in Coldwell so that they can onboard people inside of their system already. They offered to do the same thing, which is functionally just a little bit more money at the University that is in the same city, and the the university won't do it.

So that's why everything's running over the Community College. It's not just HIV use it there's a lot of bias in the way that we think about it. I want to tie this back to your question earlier.

Alan is which is that we never answered which was our predictions for 2023 and I think that we're seeing a tide change in in attitudes across students across the University's across employers about the need for for COBOL. But I think one of the reasons why these organizations have a hard time recruiting and retaining is because of the way they Define the job. These let's let's make I'm gonna be like really blunt about it the way most companies Define their Cobalt jobs their s*** jobs.

They're go in and maintain the same code and do nothing creative or innovative. That tide is changing. Companies are looking at their Cobalt assets.

They know that they can do more with it. They know they have to be more dynamic in the current environment. So in my job I talk to a lot of people about modernization.

It is a very very hot topic modernizing cobal applications in particular. The job of modernizing a COBOL application is much much more interesting than those maintaining Cobalt jobs that are you standing for people no one wants to go in judge judge judge guys. We had a hard stop a minute ago, and I got to respect that.

Everyone has stuff to do. I want to thank the three of you for coming on as usual and just lighting it up. I I so appreciate it.

I know John does too. We will have you back on we'll continue more importantly anybody's organization out there who might be interested in sponsoring this Cobalt new research be groundbreaking check it out on the open Mainframe project panel John. Thanks for being with us.

This is Alan Shimel for the open Mainframe project video series. We'll see you next month. Thanks everybody.

Thanks for you.