Hm. If that's true of many shops (and it sounds plausible), maybe my sneers at
the colleges' ignorant comments are ill-founded and they may be starting to win
their war against the mainframe. Of course, if their efforts have a lot of
effect then surely the need for CICS will reverse the trend...wouldn't you
think?
---
Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313
/* [On the observation that every culture has words equating "uncivilized" and
"foreigner":] Tragic? It's sidesplitting! It's the only joke the Almighty
ever repeats, because it never grows stale with use. -from _Star Beast_ by
Robert A Heinlein. */
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
David Crayford
Sent: Tuesday, January 4, 2022 21:48
It's true. The company I work for has been on-boarding millennials for years
now to replace the guys that are retiring. I work with some very smart young
guys, some of who write systems level code. None of them use REXX unless it's
used in a product they are working on. We're ripping and replacing decades old
build tools written in REXX with Python because it's become technical debt and
no one can support it.
The typical millenial uses:
* An IDE such as VS Code, IntelliJ, Slickedit with plugins for
mainframe languages and to access the MVS file system.
* They don't use TSO or the ISPF editor so there is no need for REXX
edit macros etc. ISPF is mainly used for SDSF and submitting jobs.
* They work in a interactive shell and use UNIX utilties.
* Everything is stored in Git repositories.
* They code scripts in Python, Node.js or a JVM language.
--- On 5/1/22 10:06 am, Seymour J Metz wrote:
> That's David Crayford, not me. I have no basis to either confirm or
> contradict. It's unfortunate if true.
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Bob Bridges [robhbrid...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 4, 2022 9:03 PM
>
> Shmuel, I'm interested (and perhaps a little dismayed) at your third point.
> I've gotten the impression, from reading ads about job openings, that REXX
> programmers aren't very thick on the ground even at IBM where you'd think
> it'd be pretty easy to find them. But "shrinking by the day"? Where do you
> get that? I'm not disagreeing -- I have no data -- but have you?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Crayford
> Sent: Tuesday, January 4, 2022 19:23
>
> 1. IBM are too busy porting contemporary languages like Python, Golang
> and Node.js
> 2. No vendor will port ooRexx because there is no market for it that is
> willing to pay support
> 3. The pool of REXX developers is shrinking by the day and no young
> people want to learn it unless they have to
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
