[sdoering]

I know from quite a few traditional corporations, especially banks that have very central old systems that they pay people enormous day rates to maintain.

But the question would be if one wants to be the go to guy for keeping old cobol things running.

[szundi]

The value of any other stuff you learn other than solving problems has half life. If you can be paid extra for Cobol stuff for a decade or two, then why not use this opportunity and get up to speed in 2-3 years after that.

If you have just a bit of bad luck, you may have a carreer with no real deep involvement with anything, not even talking about the fact that the language is just one aspect of your productivity.

[HPsquared]

You could call the general skill "software archaeology".