To quote Lizette "Tuning programs have benefits". I'd add "if you succeed" to that sentence.
Actually, just the attempt to tune yields UNDERSTANDING as another benefit. But I doubt that ever gets realistically accounted for. Cheers, Martin Martin Packer, zChampion, Principal Systems Investigator, Worldwide Banking Center of Excellence, IBM +44-7802-245-584 email: martin_pac...@uk.ibm.com Twitter / Facebook IDs: MartinPacker Blog: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/MartinPacker From: Timothy Sipples <sipp...@sg.ibm.com> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Date: 09/04/2015 07:13 Subject: Re: A New Performance Model ? Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> Dave Barry wrote: >In the old paradigm, technology was managed by technologists. >In the new paradigm, technology is managed by accountants. I hate to break the news to you, Dave, but technology has *always* been "managed by accountants." That predates electronic computers. Consider Henry Ford's assembly lines as an example. Roger W. Suhr wrote: >It did start back in the 90's with "disk space is cheap", >then it went to "memory is cheap' and now it's MIPS is a >commodity.... What are you suggesting, Roger? Are you recommending that IT vendors start raising their prices on storage and computing? (That might require Shane's conspiracy -- see below.) Do you miss the days when programmers had to spend their (somewhat less) precious time figuring out clever ways to code to optimize (and re-optimize) instruction and data fetches with disk rotation speeds? Not that I remember those days much, but to the extent I do I don't remember them fondly. Yes, from the perspective of 1982 it seems "ridiculous" that one 2015 smartphone application wouldn't be able to fit on one 1982 hard disk. However, we don't live in 1982 any more, and thank goodness. Storage isn't what it was in 1982, and that's the whole point. It's faster, more reliable, and ridiculously less expensive. We shift our attentions elsewhere, rightly so, at least in terms of degree of emphasis. We simply don't worry about kilobytes if we're rational. This year we worry about terabytes, and maybe in the future we won't even worry about those. Even in 1982 computing was "wasted" on Pac-Man, for example. Have we already forgotten that? There were people in 1982 complaining about such computing "profligacy," too. If you were around in 1982 you probably laughed at them, with considerable merit -- as you steered a few pixels around a maze to gobble up other pixels. J.O.Skip Robinson wrote: >I have not mined this thread meticulously, but I did not >see mention of software costs. Well sure, it's ONE AND ONLY ONE FACTOR TO CONSIDER. No less, NO MORE. Roger Suhr added: >The software costs might break the deal. Or they might not! Or there might not even be any. Lizette Koehler wrote: >A friend of mine that does contract work.... >Tuning programs have benefits. Well sure. The act of tuning also has costs (that pesky "contract work") and risks. Sometimes shaving 0.1 second off a CICS transaction has a positive return on investment, and if so, bravo. Sometimes -- and, if current economic trends continue, increasingly often -- that particular activity has a negative return on investment, or it's not the highest return on investment compared to other available, alternative investments. See above regarding Dave Barry's complaints about accountants, but, for better or worse, the (real) economics matter. Misunderstand them or ignore them at your peril. Shane Ginnane wrote: >No wonder the vendor(s) keep wanting to peddle the "tuning is >too expensive, no-one cares" piffle. Yes, it's all a massive conspiracy. Real, quality-adjusted IT labor rates really haven't gone up in most countries, storage and computing costs really haven't gone down, and we should all behave just like it's 1982, or 1992, or maybe 2002.... ....Sure, some vendors (and some people within vendors) peddle nonsense. I don't peddle anything except a bicycle. I do focus on reality: IT economics have changed, they continue to change, and they matter. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM z Systems, AP/GCG/MEA E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
