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The time is quickly approaching where there will no longer be people who do nothing but programming, it will just be another aspect of their normal job. Think about accountants who write their own Excel Macros, eventually that will expand to more conventional types of programming.

I started out in ‘83 as a COBOL IMS programmer. One of the great things about it is that that single skill springboarded me to a very lucrative career without having to contend with competing tech. Sure, I had to learn CICS in the early 90’s, but CICS is to IMS DC what Ford is to Chevy. It’s so similar that it was a piece of cake.

But then the world of servers and all to 4th generation languages popped up. It got so there may be lots of jobs were out there, but only a handful were for your “specific” skillset. But us Cobol guys just kept grinding away. $27 an hour. $35 an hour. $45 an hour. Then $55, $75 and, finally, $125 an hour. And it was then that the influx of immigrants started impacting the Mainframe programming world.

It still pays pretty well if you are an old timer, but I moved on to communication intensive stuff (i.e. BA and PM). That is harder to outsource - with the equivalent pay deflation. ;-)

I used to say to kids in the early 90’s that iin the future, you can’t say one of these things, you will not be able to afford your own home:

1. I own my own company.
2. I’m in sales.
3. You can’t pull a person of average intelligence off the street and teach them my job in a month.

And none of those three are a guarantee.

Excel Macros, eventually that will expand to more conventional types of programming.

I’ve worked with guys who started programming just like that. However, they had to attend formal training to be “good” programmers. Interestingly, a lot of programmers could not write an Excel Macro to save their soul. It’s kinda funny. I worked with some cobol programmers who refused to embrace any new technology.

My skills with Microsoft Office are, to me, nothing special, but I’ve worked on contracts where they thought I was an MS Office guru. You would not believe how many people use MS Office daily but don’t even know what a macro is.

They’re not dumb. They’re just too busy doing their job and using it the way they use it to realize the functionality is there and may help them. I used Word macros to remediate Microfocus COBOL code for Y2K. It was easy, but I’d almost have to re-learn it today to do it now. Actually, I’d probably have to fiddle with it for an hour or so. ;-)