>When I started out an IBM manual was worth its weight in gold almost. >Now the problem is wading through all the information. It can be >overwhelming. Also experience (someone mentioned a mentor) is hard to >find in books.
I agree that a mentor can be a tremendous asset, however let's not overlook one other key element. You mentioned how valuable an IBM manual was in the "old days", but consider that in most environments today, the system programmer has access to a "sandbox" system virtually 24 hours a day, both at work and at home. In the old days, the opportunity to TEST or try something out required an inordinate amount of finesse to carve out a small chunk of time. In truth, like the manuals, there has never been a higher availablility of access to test configurations than exists today, yet the majority of people i've run into rarely exploit these opportunities. Mentor or not, the majority of a system programmer's education will come from "hands on", and we have significant unexploited opportunities there. Adam ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
