- Name: Payter Versteegen
- COBOL Experience: Beginner
- Location: Annapolis, MD
- Availability: Part-time
- Availability Type: Volunteer
- Link to LinkedIn profile (or other relevant job experience information): Nearly 30 years in nearly everything but COBOL — Various assemblies; Pascal/C/C++; Shell, Python, Ruby. Will learn anything.
Started off in 1991 for CSC subbed to IBM for the upgrade of the Air Traffic Control systems as an admin for one of the test labs (ISSS). Lots of shell scripting and some Ada and binary-analysis work, but mostly scripts to automate testing CM. At one point I did some REXX programming, but the only memory related to that keyword was that folders could hold either only folders or only files. I do not remember the mainframe system at the time. That’s the only experience I have with Big Iron systems.
From 1994 through to 2008 I’ve been involved in various command-and-control and embedded systems projects spanning the telecom, point-of-sale, and aerospace industries. I’ve been exposed to many realtime, desktop, and server operating environments along the way. VxWorks, QNX, VRTX, Embedded Linux, FreeBSD, to name (probably) most of them. Testing and documentation have become more and more integrated into my efforts in each subsequent gig. Most recently, I’ve been working with ruby/rails, python and its asyncio, and the RabbitMQ message broker. Testing with rspec (ruby) and mamba (python) and docs with plain-ole markdown (thank you, pandoc)
I am currently practicing stay at home along with most of the rest of my family (who are getting on marvelously, may I boast!), and can offer at least 10 hours a week of volunteer time, likely more. I’m eager to help.
Gonna start playing around with gnu-cobol in hercules on my FreeBSD box 
Hey payter, has anyone reached out to you yet?
Just curious because I am wondering if this is something that is worthwhile to start learning, if there really is this much demand and not enough supply or if I am misreading something.
I’d love to take part in helping out in this supposed great migration into newer tech.
Let me know, thanks!
Greetings, Strangeling,
I’ve received no direct contact, although a @miltonmmjr user did link to my post within a few days.
I’m moving forward with learning COBOL anyway, just because I’m not allowed back in the office, and I must do something to keep cognitively engaged. Plus, this exercise also addresses a thirst for new languages to learn. I’ve built a few simple Hello World variants, but haven’t gotten to use the hercules mainframe emulator, yet.
In other news, I’m not sure the intent here is to move from COBOL-powered systems to something more mainstream/accessible, but to modify existing systems to address changes in their requirements.
We’ll see what happens. I don’t know what to expect from this blog/forum.
Talk soon, eh? Take care of yourself.