I was going to make a list of things you could learn this week but, the tech world got a notable call to arms this week. We need more COBOL developers in the US. The glut of unemployment claims has crippled mainframe systems designed to run in a satisfactory government manner under normal conditions. “The governor of New Jersey just put out the call on live TV that he is desperate for Cobol programmers right now.” As insane as this sounds, it’s true (and long overdue). We don’t need to modernize this; it’s not able to run as-is. We need more COBOL programmers now. The University of Limerick has a free COBOL programming course. IBM also has a Master the Mainframe course that you can take online now. Even if you don’t need a job right now, maybe you know someone who does. We can solve two problems at once here! People Hire Alice Goldfuss Be like a shoe and just do it. ...

I understand that there are some of you looking for something to learn while we’re in this odd time. I wrote this week’s newsletter with that in mind. If you don’t know git, now is the time to learn for sure. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any feedback. Thank you for subscribing and reading. People We’re all in this Together: A Wellness Guide from the CNCF Well-Being Working Group If you’re struggling, I’m right there with you. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help. IBM awards its second $50,000 Open Source Community Grant to internship and mentorship program Outreachy “Our open source community nominated a number of nonprofits doing incredible work and, while voting was close with plenty of deserving organizations in the mix, we awarded Outreachy the most votes for their commitment to providing paid internships to underserved and underrepresented minorities.” Jeff Geerling’s DevOps books are free in April, thanks to Device42 Huge thanks for these books. Ansible for DevOps changed my career. Ansible for Kubernetes builds on that. Thank you! ...

The impact of the coronavirus hit the tech events industry hard this week. In a shocking move on Tuesday, O’Reilly announced it has immediately ceased all in-person events. To add insult to injury, O’Reilly laid off their entire events staff during a pandemic. To make matters worse, under US law, they’ll get only a week of health insurance benefits, meager support for COBRA (super expensive health insurance), and any severance is based solely on tenure. DevOps’ish is an O’Reilly community partner. I heard from the O’Reilly partner team this week that they were full steam ahead. I was slated to speak at the O’Reilly Infrastructure & Ops Conference in June). I haven’t heard a peep out of O’Reilly about what happens now. Tim O’Reilly mustered up this ’lipstick on a pig’ post, though, so we should all feel great about it, right? Guess what; I don’t. People The Hidden Vulnerabilities of Open Source Software The increasing use of open source software in most commercial apps has revolutionized software development-but also created hidden vulnerabilities, say Frank Nagle and Jenny Hoffman. ...

There is a line in Saving Private Ryan about griping. There’s a chain of command in the military and leadership voices its concerns up the chain, never down it. This week, I’ve been reaching up my chain of command in government to make sure that the people that are supposed to be leading right now are. I would encourage you to do the same. Some good news this week is that after announcing an initiative to harness a global computer network to contribute work towards pharmaceutical drugs to combat COVID-19, Folding@Home has seen a 1200% increase in computers actively contributing to the project. I set up four systems to run Folding@Home this week as part of this effort. But, on Friday, I had to back down to three due to fan noise. I would also encourage you to donate any spare CPU and GPU cycles you have to the project. Together we can beat COVID-19. People Join SIG Scalability and Learn Kubernetes the Hard Way “Contributing to SIG Scalability is a great way to learn Kubernetes in all its depth and breadth, and the team would love to have you join as a contributor. I took a look at the value of learning the hard way and interviewed the current SIG chairs to give you an idea of what contribution feels like.” ...

In dark times, there are typically rays of light that can be found to give us hope. I read an article last weekend that I thought would be worth mentioning here this week. Will the coronavirus crisis, like Sars, give birth to the next big thing in China tech? looks at how the Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com got their start during the SARS crisis of 2002-2003. The coronavirus caused markets to tank this week. But, US banks had plenty of liquidity from the Federal Reserve and capital on hand thanks to regulations passed after the 2008 financial crisis. A global outbreak of this nature will have a significant economic impact. But, there will be some good that comes from this current crisis. One possible example is that a few companies have halted stock buybacks. Stopping stock buybacks might do some good for the economy as companies maintain capital that can be invested in things that will be more impactful during this trying time. Use your time effectively like Isaac Newton did. You might not invent calculus or theories for gravity and motion but, the time you save from commuting might be able to be put to some good use. Keep your heads up. ...