Computerworld — For the past few years, debate has raged in the pages of Computerworld and other IT publications on what will happen when the baby boom generation of IT workers retires. Will their departure lead to a debilitating IT skills shortage? Or will many companies end up viewing this the way many now perceive Y2k, as a case of IT vendors crying wolf in order to get paid plenty in consulting fees by fearful customers?

While the question remains unresolved on whether the baby boomer exodus will impact IT skills in general, many agree: Boomer retirements will significantly affect so-called legacy computer systems, especially those based on mainframe platforms. Why? Many, perhaps most, employees who work with mainframes honed their skills in the 1970s and 1980s. According to one recent study, nearly three-quarters of mainframe shops reported that at least one of their employees was already eligible for retirement.

Skills replacement? No problem

Many IT vendors would like CIOs to believe that, when the landslide of boomer retirements begins, mainframe systems will become useless because their legacy (Cobol, Assembler, PL/I) code will be gibberish to the remaining young Java and .Net programmers. Coincidentally, these same vendors would prefer that CIOs hurry to tear out all legacy systems and replace them with their own systems, built using Java and .Net.

Fortunately for companies that prefer the cost/value ratio of their current systems (legacy or not), skills replacement is far less risky and expensive than system replacement. And there are a lot of training options. For example, workers skilled in one programming language can fairly easily learn another. (A 2007 Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Software AG found that programmers proficient in Cobol could easily learn Software AG's Natural). Training is offered frequently by vendors and independent contractors, and many organizations already use in-house training to assure continuity among their programming staff. And then, of course, there are well-publicized initiatives, such as zNextGen, dedicated to partnering with colleges and universities to teach mainframe-oriented skills to aspiring IT professionals.

The larger issue is that loss of programming skills is actually the easiest outcome of the baby boomer exodus to address. Far more worrisome are the impending losses of mission-critical experience and organizational domain knowledge. These challenges cannot be solved by replacing skills or systems.

Major Worry No. 1: Loss of mission-critical experience

In the heyday of mainframe computing, aspiring programmers didn't learn their trade through do-it-yourself guides to Perl, Python or Java. Nor could they download freeware to a PC. (What PC?)

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