By the same stroke, I was at a shop where programmers were forced to
use the regular ISPF/PDF interface. Watching them work was
excruciatingly painful. They had about 120 programmers, which (at a
conservative estimate of $100,000 annual cost per programmer), would
have cost the company at least TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR! When
you're talking about numbers as big as this, anything that can be done
to improve productivity pays ENORMOUS dividends.
For five thousand dollars (i.e. about 0.04% of that amount, or 5% of
the cost of hiring a single new programmer), they could have given
their programmers a far more powerful interface. This would have taken
less than an hour to do, and would have made all of their programmers
roughly 10% more productive. Do the math.
Even for a shop with only 1 programmer, upgrading the ISPF/PDF
interface should be a no-brainer. Yet there are many companies out
there who still use the same basic interface their programmers were
using in the 1980's. And this is only one example of how companies can
same vast amounts of money. It's why I contend that NOT buying tools
wastes far more money than is ever wasted by buying them.
IMHO, its not so simple. You are assuming that by installing such a
tool, it would automatically and enthusiastically be used by all or most
of those programmers. Personally I find that inertia is a major factor.
We are a relatively small development shop, so we don't spend on
external software without a good reason. We have a variety of tools to
enhance our ISPF experience, some from CBT and other sources (e.g., the
PDS command), some home-grown, but in my experience only a small
percentage of our programmers make effective use of them. Many can't be
bothered to take the time to learn to use the tools and would rather
"get on with the job" even if it means more work in the long run.
Use of a new or enhanced environment often requires education, periodic
re-education (to remind them of the functions they never took time to
learn) and proselytizing by some cadre of proponents.
--
Bruce A. Black
Senior Software Developer for FDR
Innovation Data Processing 973-890-7300
personal: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
sales info: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
tech support: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web: www.innovationdp.fdr.com
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