Well, IBM could help.
Steve talks about 'young' people. I'm the old kind, retired. Obviously
inventing anything for z/OS needs z/OS access.
I keep seeing mainframe 'retirees' on this list, some maybe having
ideas+energy for new stuff, big or small. They ALL just seem to swan off
into the sunset, likely never touching a mainframe again .. all those skills
gone, done, fin d'histoire.
And who of us are going to spend $350/month for '24 units of time' (whatever
that represents?) on a VIC z/OS mainframe just to invent z/OS software - a
big fat gigantic zero?
What IBM needs to do for retired folk: make a Seniors' Partnerworld, let us
make a case for a project, subject it to approval, grant free access. Is not
much to ask, we give freely of our time and ideas, may even be successful ..
IBM reaps z/OS software.
But, no, we just buy bigger PC's and off into that 'other world'.
Graham Hobbs
----- Original Message -----
From: "john gilmore" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2011 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: Mainframe Fresher
Steve Comstock writes:
<begin snippet>
He looks like a bright young man, the kind we want to sustain our favorite
platform - but he can't find a job. And we on this list know he is not
alone.
This is the kind of reality we face if we don't, collectively and
individually, take positive actions.
Promote z/OS, get current ourselves, tell the stories of cool things you can
do in z/OS.
</end snippet>
has prompted me to reflect that, while it is certainly true that there are
cool things that can be done with z/OS, I have not seen a cool new z/OS
application in many, many years.
IBM code, ISV code, or the like for z/OS that is cool? Yes, sure. But a
cool new application? No, emphatically no.
To describe the applications I see routinely as pedestrian would be to
overstate their merits. The platform is very largely in the hands of
fatuous, mediocre, risk-aversive crackpot realists who avoid new technology
reflexively: Les courtisans qui l'entourant n'ont rien oublié et n'ont rien
appris.
New blood and new ideas are certainly needed, but how to infuse them into
this tired environment is not at all clear to me.
Steve's post has the great merit that it does not look at our current
situation through rose-colored glasses.
John Gilmore Ashland, MA 01721-1817 USA
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