Personally, with some notable exceptions like NIU and Marist College, I've seen very few university-level computer science programs that are effective, either for mainframes or non-mainframes.
Computer Science departments have little knowledge of the mainframe world in the first place. Almost all computer science chairpersons in a recent phone survey said that they thought mainframes went away in the 1990's. There is a tremendous disconnect from academia and the real world. Maybe there is a phone company somewhere which keeps their phone records on a non-mainframe server somewhere, but I've never seen one. Same with banking records, the IRS, credit card transactions, etc. It seems that mainframes have become almost invisible. Is part of the reason that they do their job so well? With extreme reliability, it's just always there, and apparently forgotten. Additionally, computer science chairpersons say they don't want to teach a proprietary architecture. I don't know what to say to that argument; maybe someone here has a response. Excellent courses are few and far between. One of the reasons for this is that developing software takes such huge amounts of time that it is in essential conflict with the time-constrained university environment, so it's a tough fit. Material becomes dated very soon, and new functions and concepts are continually appearing. And of course, salaries and the environment to attract top talent in the teaching industry just isn't in place in the university system. The university is apparently geared to slowly evolving technologies. I believe many of the most interesting subjects, such as DASD and catalog management, are almost totally ignored. RAID DASD is a huge area, and scarcely if ever mentioned. Lastly, enrollment in computer science programs is down sharply across the country as entry-level programming jobs have been out-sourced, and recent graduates (non-mainframe) are having difficulty finding jobs. In summary, the degree programs in computer science are in difficulty, and have been for some time. I certainly don't have all of the answers and there will not be a quick fix. Even if IBM is successful in creating new and improved programs, it will take a tremendous marketing effort to attract bright young talent to the industry. Maybe the economics of supply and demand will step in and resolve the issue. Tom Harper NEON Enterprise Software, Inc. IMS Utilities Development Team -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ted MacNEIL Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 7:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Curiosity >I wouldn't be too quick to praise the IBM program >until it shows signs of being a serious effort. I'm not impressed with their efforts. In Canada, there are two levels of post-secondary: college & university. With university being more academic. So far, only colleges have signed on (and not many). My alma mater (UoW) is not involved, and they were a hot bed of mainframes when I went there. They dropped COBOL as a requirement for co-op students in 1990, and the banks dropped their support of the programme. Also, I haven't seen many big name schools involved in the US, either. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
