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i have a mainframe question

 
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hey guys i have been enjoying the ranch much in the past few months..now i have joined a company and mainframe has been allotted as my stream...i will start training soon..my dream job was to develop cool web apps using java or c#...but java was not allotted to me..now guys please guide me on this...is mainframe a good career path? how tough is it compared to java? i know its not practical to compare the two..but how is the coding part in both fields...i mean the toughness? some people say mainframe is a hot skill but some say its outdated...is the coding like assembly? i really loved java and jee coding...is there any chance that i will find mainframes as enjoyable as that? and mainframe programming how is the coding..is it like assembly or will i gt a chance to do any high level programming? kindly give your comments
 
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Hello, mainframes in fact is a niche skill set, just like AS/400 (which I had experience with). Mainframe programming is COBOL if I recall correctly. I don't know COBOL so I can't compare with Java.
 
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K. Tsang wrote: . . . Mainframe programming is COBOL if I recall correctly. . . .

I think that is a bit of an exaggeration! I am sure lots of other languages are used on mainframes.
 
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Did you tried talking to your HR about this? Perhaps you can convince them to put you in Java.

Also note that now a days, everyone's dream is Java. So you'll end up like 100000+1th Java developer. On the other side, if you're in mainframes you may be 100+1th mainframe developer. Think about it. Having rare skill always pays good in long term than having a skill where thousands of developers are competing in market.

Good luck!
 
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