Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Clark Morris]

On 23 Feb 2007 09:00:04 -0800, in bit.listserv.ibm-main you wrote:

>On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 20:18:01 -0600, Graying MVS Sysprog 
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>Yikes.  So, because of a reorg, I have a new boss that knows nothing about
>>mainframes at all.   Not even Unix.  Just Windoze, as far as I can tell.
>>I've always had a manager that used to do my job or one very close to it.
>>Now I have to explain to him all the projects I'm working on, etc.  In 
>other words, really, it's a job interview.  Am I worth anything to the 
>company?
>>I'm the only full time sysprog left here.
>>
>>I know.  I know.  And I'm sorry that, yes, at least I do still have a job
>>doing what I love.  I know many of us have been retired lately.
>>
>>Any sage words would be appreciated.  Or job offers.  :)
>
>Well, I've read thru all the other postings to this.  Nowhere did you 
>mention whether the new boss was male or female?  And whether he/she is
>older than you (I assume yes)?  Without inquiring of your age, how much
>younger (in years) is he/she?
>
>You just need to impress on the new manager AND upper management,
>that mainframes are around because of:
>
>-Reliability
>-Longevity
>-Cost (bang for the buck)
>-Throughput capacity
>-Prohibitive conversion cost to the PC / Server,
>Windoze, and/or midrange world
>(and THAT un-reliability you end up with)
>
>IBM mainframe SysProgs are dinosaurs for a reason.  No one is teaching 
>this stuff anymore (not really), and certainly not in college course 
>curriculums for an InfoSys / IT degree, ay?!  Newbies gotta learn this 
>stuff from us old-timers.

My only computer course in college was on an IBM 650 with a 2000 word
drum and vacuum tubes.  Most of my learning was OJT plus being sent to
some IBM courses. My personal opinion is that the universities have
bamboozled the business community into believing that they really
train people for running data centers.
>
>As Martha Stewart would say; 
>"Dinosaur-speed is a GOOD thing.ay there, sonny?!"
>
>
>TTFN,
>Mark Young
>
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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Ted MacNEIL]

>My personal opinion is that the universities have
bamboozled the business community into believing that they really train people 
for running data centers.

In the 1970's, the University of Waterloo did, but what made the difference was 
the CO-OP programme.

But, I don't think it's the case, anymore.
Not since they dropped teaching COBOL (early 1990's), and (I believe) Mainframe 
Assembler.

-
Too busy driving to stop for gas!  

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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Greg Saccomanno]

>My personal opinion is that the universities have
>bamboozled the business community into believing that they really
>train people for running data centers.

I don't know if it's the universities, did you see the 
SearchDataCenter.com article on best places to build a new data center. 

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid80_gci12
38054,00.html?track=NL-455&ad=576189USCA&asrc=EM_NLT_894417&uid=663533

or 
http://tinyurl.com/2uq59x
(you may need to register to access the article, I am not sure, if so, my 
apologies)

Where the The Boyd Company Inc. replied to:

"It may be cheaper to hire someone in Sioux Falls, but is there any talent 
there to hire?"
With
"Boyd said yes, either through local university connections or younger 
people willing to relocate." 
And
"Dakota State University, for example, is only an hour outside of Sioux 
Falls and has several undergraduate and graduate degree programs in 
computer science and information systems. That makes for an ideal talent 
pool for Sioux Falls' employers to draw from."

They don't say what happens when there's a problem in your new $16+ 
Million data center and all you are staffed with are people that learned 
all they know in a University.  I have a son getting an MIS degree and as 
much as I love him, I wouldn't want him to be the only one fixing my major 
problem until he gets quite a few years of real world experience (from 
someone that has some). 

Greg
 

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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Eric Bielefeld]

I went to a technical college starting around 1971 at the Milwaukee Area 
Technical College.  I took the Business Data Processing associate degree 
program.  They didin't teach systems programming, but they had an excellent 
program teaching Cobol, Assembler, RPG, database, PL/1, Utilities and JCL, etc. 
 

Of course now, I don't think they teach anything mainframe, except maybe a 
Cobol course.

Eric Bielefeld
Sr. Systems Programmer
Lands' End
608-935-4680
Dodgeville, Wisconsin


 Clark Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> 
> My only computer course in college was on an IBM 650 with a 2000 word
> drum and vacuum tubes.  Most of my learning was OJT plus being sent to
> some IBM courses. My personal opinion is that the universities have
> bamboozled the business community into believing that they really
> train people for running data centers.
> >
> >As Martha Stewart would say; 
> >"Dinosaur-speed is a GOOD thing.ay there, sonny?!"
> >
> >
> >TTFN,
> >Mark Young

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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Robert Fake]

I attended (now defunct) Computer Learning Center in Northern Virginia in
1978, right out of high school.  Like Eric mentioned, no systems
programming, but mainframe basics (bits, bytes) and Cobol, Assembler and
RPG.  All work was done on a 360/xx and punched cards.  Had to wait
overnight to get your results back (unlike today when you can debug your
syntax with the compiler by running it however many times a day.)

They taught Cobol first, which was easier to understand and code, but hard
to debug.  Then they taught us Assembler.  That's when the light bulb came
on.  It was then that I understood how to debug my Cobol and a love for
reading dumps.

Bob
Robert B. Fake
InfoSec, Inc.
703-825-1202 (o)
571-241-5492 (c)
949-203-0406 (efax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Visit us at www.infosecinc.com
-Original Message-
From: Eric Bielefeld [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 12:18 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was
Re: help -- ignorant new boss

I went to a technical college starting around 1971 at the Milwaukee Area
Technical College.  I took the Business Data Processing associate degree
program.  They didin't teach systems programming, but they had an excellent
program teaching Cobol, Assembler, RPG, database, PL/1, Utilities and JCL,
etc.  

Of course now, I don't think they teach anything mainframe, except maybe a
Cobol course.

Eric Bielefeld
Sr. Systems Programmer
Lands' End
608-935-4680
Dodgeville, Wisconsin


 Clark Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> 
> My only computer course in college was on an IBM 650 with a 2000 word
> drum and vacuum tubes.  Most of my learning was OJT plus being sent to
> some IBM courses. My personal opinion is that the universities have
> bamboozled the business community into believing that they really
> train people for running data centers.
> >
> >As Martha Stewart would say; 
> >"Dinosaur-speed is a GOOD thing.ay there, sonny?!"
> >
> >
> >TTFN,
> >Mark Young

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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Dave Jones]

For what it's worth, Houston Community College System, here in Harris
County, TX, offers an IBM Enterprise Server Certificate path:
http://csci.hccs.edu/public/students/programs/IBM_EnterpriseServer_Certificate06.htm


DJ

On Sat, 24 Feb 2007 08:44:45 -0500, Robert Fake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>I attended (now defunct) Computer Learning Center in Northern Virginia in
>1978, right out of high school.  Like Eric mentioned, no systems
>programming, but mainframe basics (bits, bytes) and Cobol, Assembler and
>RPG.  All work was done on a 360/xx and punched cards.  Had to wait
>overnight to get your results back (unlike today when you can debug your
>syntax with the compiler by running it however many times a day.)
>
>They taught Cobol first, which was easier to understand and code, but hard
>to debug.  Then they taught us Assembler.  That's when the light bulb came
>on.  It was then that I understood how to debug my Cobol and a love for
>reading dumps.
>
>Bob
>Robert B. Fake
>InfoSec, Inc.
>703-825-1202 (o)
>571-241-5492 (c)
>949-203-0406 (efax)
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Visit us at www.infosecinc.com

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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Bill Seubert]

In the early 1980s, I got a BS in Comp Sci. at the University of MO -
Columbia.  The "Scientific Programming" track included IBM Assembler and
PL/I as the main languages, and there were two Systems Programming classes -
a 300 and a 400 (graduate) level class.  I took 'em both - both required the
Assembler class as a prereq.  CS351 was basically an intro to MVS and its
architecture (was vaguely similar to the old MVS Structure and Logic class),
and the CS451 taught some really cool internal stuff.  We used VM as our
development platform.  In 451, we wrote assembler programs to do stuff like
access PDS directories and wrote a channel program.  Ah, those were the days...


Bill Seubert
System z I/T Architect
IBM Corporation
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Steve Comstock]

Dave Jones wrote:

For what it's worth, Houston Community College System, here in Harris
County, TX, offers an IBM Enterprise Server Certificate path:
http://csci.hccs.edu/public/students/programs/IBM_EnterpriseServer_Certificate06.htm



Interesting. They offer a CICS programming class and an Assembler
class, but no COBOL, PL/I, or C. Do they run the CICS class
using Assembler for their language of choice?

Kind regards,

-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.

303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com

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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.)]

In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, on 02/23/2007
   at 05:32 PM, Clark Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:

>My only computer course in college was on an IBM 650 with a 2000 word
>drum and vacuum tubes.

We had a deluxe confiuration; a disk drive and two tape drives, plus
some optional opcodes.

>My personal opinion is that the universities have
>bamboozled the business community into believing that they really
>train people for running data centers.

FWIW I was drafted into teaching one SP course at the Technion and
into taking over an assembler course when the instructor was called up
for active duty. I don't know how common such courses were elsewhere.

-- 
 Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
 ISO position; see  
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)

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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Bruce Black]

At Carnegie Mellon U (Carnegie Tech) in the 60s, Computer Science was 
only a graduate degree, so I took math with a computer option.


They offered a systems programming course which I took in my last 
semester.  The instructor had no idea what to do, so he just assigned a 
team of students to work on a compiler implementation (actually as I 
recall it was a compiler-compiler whose input was the BN form which 
defined the language). 

Anyway, it was independant study, meaning that he met with us twice and 
turned us loose.  Our team divided up the task and I took disk I/O 
routines.  We never got it working, but the team leader turned in the 
listings of what we had in a big computer output binder.  I got a C in 
the course and never understood why.  Some years later I found that the 
team leader had put my listings in backwards. so you couldn't read them 
without undoing the binder, which was apparently too much work for the 
instructor. 


So I am not a systems programmer but I play one on the Internet.

--
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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Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Binyamin Dissen]

On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 10:26:23 -0500 Bruce Black <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

:>At Carnegie Mellon U (Carnegie Tech) in the 60s, Computer Science was 
:>only a graduate degree, so I took math with a computer option.

:>They offered a systems programming course which I took in my last 
:>semester.  The instructor had no idea what to do, so he just assigned a 
:>team of students to work on a compiler implementation (actually as I 
:>recall it was a compiler-compiler whose input was the BN form which 
:>defined the language). 

:>Anyway, it was independant study, meaning that he met with us twice and 
:>turned us loose.  Our team divided up the task and I took disk I/O 
:>routines.  We never got it working, but the team leader turned in the 
:>listings of what we had in a big computer output binder.  I got a C in 
:>the course and never understood why.  Some years later I found that the 
:>team leader had put my listings in backwards. so you couldn't read them 
:>without undoing the binder, which was apparently too much work for the 
:>instructor. 

:>So I am not a systems programmer but I play one on the Internet.

At Northeastern Illinois they had a few systems programming classes (late
70s).

One was to write a compiler, so I wrote a compiler for a PL1 subset (in PL1)
that generated assembler code. Did not implement I/O instructions, but it was
callable from Fortran. It came out to about a box of cards - I probably have
it around somewhere.

Another was database, where I wrote a program that would take a database
definition, validate it and report on it. 

Of course, I started earlier, since the university "hid" the IEHLIST and
IEHPROGM programs (because some students tried all sorts of "interesting"
examples) so I wrote my own IEHLIST to display all the datasets on a volume
and members in PDS's (used OPENJ). BTW, the secret library was SYS$.LINKLIB.

--
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Director, Dissen Software, Bar & Grill - Israel


Should you use the mailblocks package and expect a response from me,
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I very rarely bother responding to challenge/response systems,
especially those from irresponsible companies.

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Re: SPAM-LOW: Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Rick Fochtman]

Bruce Black wrote:

At Carnegie Mellon U (Carnegie Tech) in the 60s, Computer Science was 
only a graduate degree, so I took math with a computer option.


They offered a systems programming course which I took in my last 
semester.  The instructor had no idea what to do, so he just assigned 
a team of students to work on a compiler implementation (actually as I 
recall it was a compiler-compiler whose input was the BN form which 
defined the language).
Anyway, it was independant study, meaning that he met with us twice 
and turned us loose.  Our team divided up the task and I took disk I/O 
routines.  We never got it working, but the team leader turned in the 
listings of what we had in a big computer output binder.  I got a C in 
the course and never understood why.  Some years later I found that 
the team leader had put my listings in backwards. so you couldn't read 
them without undoing the binder, which was apparently too much work 
for the instructor.

So I am not a systems programmer but I play one on the Internet.

Bruce, that sounds like the old XPL "system", complete with Analyzer, 
XCOM compiler and SKELETON, which was "fleshed in" by the prospective 
compiler developer. If you still have the textbook, I've got the 
code 


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Re: SPAM-LOW: Re: Did schools ever teach systems programming other than NIU was Re: help -- ignorant new boss

[Bruce Black]

Bruce, that sounds like the old XPL "system", complete with Analyzer, 
XCOM compiler and SKELETON, which was "fleshed in" by the prospective 
compiler developer. If you still have the textbook, I've got the 
code 
In my course, no textbook.  He just gave us some general guidance and 
turned us loose.  Hardly worth the money for the course.


--
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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