Re: Computer Programming Career
From: Adrian Birkett (aaa_at_notreallyhere.com)
Date: 03/17/04
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Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 16:29:07 +0000
Lisa wrote:
>I have a BSBA in Information Systems and have been a mainframe COBOL
>programmer for 22 years. Last year I was laid off and am taking
>courses at a local community college to "update" my degree under the
>Trade Affected Workers program. I am from the "old school", thus my
>previous college courses included COBOL, FORTRAN, RPG, and Assembler.
>So far, I have taken/am taking courses in Visual Basic, JAVA, Access,
>AS/400, Hardware Installation/Maintenance, and Data
>Communications/Networking. Can anyone give me any guidance on other
>courses that would be beneficial? I enjoy programming and wish to stay
>in that field as long as there are still jobs available in the U.S.
>
Lisa,
I am also a similar position to yourself. I had been a dedicated VMS
COBOL/Powerhouse programmer for many years then switched jobs to more of
a dedicated support role. Efectively, my programming career stopped at
that point. I now wish to try to get back into the black art of
commercial programming. It would appear from the job adverts I recieve
daily (maybe some of your agencies or jobsites in the States have the
same subscription services as ours in the UK? - have a look at
jobserve.co.uk as an example), that VB and VB.Net are the buisness
languages of choice with C/C++ and Visual C++ the same for the technical
side of things.
You then have to consider the web and all thaty comes with it. Basic
HTML skills just don't cut it these days. .ASP, XML, DHTML and the whole
host of web page generation technologies keep raising their ugly heads.
Once you've got the front end out of the way, how about the database
systems underneath. Oracle, simple Access or ... (thsi list goes on).
I personally am currently learing VB 6 and VC++ just for the hell of it
and because I don't have to go to college to do so (maybe I should !!).
I agree with one post here which suggests non-programming disciplins.
Project management is always a good starter. Given your amount of
experience, have you ever considered an analysts or designers role
rather than the actual coding?
Hope you find something to suit you as soon as possible.
Kind regards,
Ade
(abirkett@seeesssee.com - say it then spell it)
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