My first dive into programming: Cobol or Java?

Question

Hi everyone :)

I'm here in Spain (I was raised in Australia) and I am currently working for a telecom company. Before that I was a Mainframe Operator (OS/390) for a bank here in Madrid under IBM.

I am 27 going on 28 in October. I haven't studied systems engineering, I'm from an Admin background but I have an inclination for IT.

IBM regularly has courses (government funded = free) so I will attend another one this November, but I am not sure as to what to choose. Thanks be to God I am rather brainy and can manage most of what I learn or try (I love electronics/mechanics).

So, in seeing current demand for IT specialists in Cobol and Java I am at odds as to the path I have to take in order to obtain better job possibilities and a language that fits with my character: I am more keen on the inner workings of programs rather than GUI's and web sites.

So, any advice for a novice like me? It will be my first computer language I learn (apart from JCL and MVS/JES2 commands) so in your honest opinion, which should I choose?

Answer 1

You'd probably be better off with Java.  It will work you into the Object Oriented paradigm.  It's easy to get into... Once you know java, you can get a job as a java developer... but knowing object orientation, you can jump into other OO languages (generally) very quickly and easily without furthur classes.  All my programming experience started with Java, switched into C/C++, C# and now I'm a .NET developer working primarily with VB.NET.  The only programming courses I've taken have been Java.

COBOL on the other hand will be useful if you want to stay with mainframes.  It's a business language that isn't widely used except with mainframes.  I don't know too much about cobol, but I still feel that java would be a much better path.

Of course, it's your preference and choice.

Answer 2

Since you are no longer working for the bank I would say Java.  As another poster said Java can easily lead to C, C#, etc.  It is probably the more useful of the two.  That being said I don't actually like Java and forget most of what I knew.  

Cobol is useful if you are working on the mainframes, I have some friends that code it and they say it is pretty easy, I haven't had a job where I need that either.  I code ASM, C, VB.

Personally I would take Java if those were my 2 options (unless I was looking for future employment in a bank setting etc)

Answer 3

personally i would pick java, it's an easy programming language and java have a beginner programming tool. You can pick up the whole java language in about a year and become a master java programmer in 5 years. Hope this helps, Benjie.