'Sysprog' is unfortunately an ambiguous term. There are those who build software for ISVs or, of course, IBM; and there are those who keep a z/OS shop running.
As a part of an attempt to help in the selection of a new manager for a systems programming group in a European insurance company I recently spent 3 half days, one of them with each of three of the latter. They installed things; did maintenance using SMP/E, etc., etc. They did damn little testing, escept in the sense that the systematic correction of errors in their own work is testing. Moreover, it became clear that none of them knew or could know enough about all of the components they were working with to test them independently. (They were competent people, but they were not polymaths.) This melancholy conclusion led me to the notion that IVPs and MVPs, most of them necessarily supplied by vendors, needed to be widely available. These people have other needs too. They seem, for example, to have very little sense of the ways in which notionally very different kinds of IBM systems are almost all much alike in some ways. They cannot make plausible, often (but not of course always) confirmed inferences about how things work using this kind of knowledge. Moreover, I am not sure I know how to communicate/teach these skills outside of essentially one-on-one, apprenticeship situations. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA On 7/2/12, Scott Ford <scott_j_f...@yahoo.com> wrote: > John, > > I don't know what sysprogs you have been around, but I can tell you i test, > test, test , test...always have and always will. Part of the problem are the > times and education and experience.... > But I also think its how you were initially trained. > > Scott ford > www.identityforge.com > > On Jul 2, 2012, at 5:33 PM, John Gilmore <jwgli...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> John Reid has reminded us all of a generic weakness in the way we do >> things. Sysprogs install new systems and maintain them, but they do >> not usually test them. They may indeed have only the vaguest notions >> of what some of them do. >> >> Comprehensive IVPs have all but disappeared; but it it time, I think, >> to reintroduce them. Moreover, there is a need for MVPs (Maintenance >> Verification Procedures) too. >> >> If they were always available sysprogs could properly be given the >> responsibility for using them and exami ng their outputs. >> >> John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA >> >> On 7/2/12, John Blythe Reid <johnblyther...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> From what I've read, and it sounds quite as you would expect, the >>> systems >>> programmers who applied the maintenance to CA-7 were based in the main >>> Edinburgh data centre whereas the team responsible for job scheduling >>> using >>> CA-7 were based in Hyderabad. As we all know, when a critical job abends >>> during the middle of the night with a tight batch window, things become >>> quite stressful. And that rising stress level can lead to someone >>> pressing >>> the wrong key. Normally the consequences are not as disastrous as this >>> one's been. >>> >>> John. >>> >>> On 2 July 2012 14:54, Mark Zelden <m...@mzelden.com> wrote: >>> >>>> On Sun, 1 Jul 2012 09:33:05 -0500, Ed Gould <edgould1...@comcast.net> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Shmuel: >>>>> >>>>> Well if it was outsourced I wouldn't be surprised to much. >>>>> I suspect that these people sell themselves as experts in everything >>>>> CA-7 or MVS you name it. I have interviewed two foreign speaking >>>>> individuals and it turns out they read the manual and do not have a >>>>> clue beyond that. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Talk about a blanket generalization! Ed, when was the last time you >>>> did any real work in MVS or worked with or in a company that >>>> off shored any of their work? >>>> >>>> And I don't know the specifics of this incident and haven't been >>>> following >>>> it closely, but based on the CA-7 PTFs I saw released right afterwards >>>> I would say the problem was related to the attempted upgrade (highly >>>> doubtful that it was operators that attempted it) and backout coupled >>>> with a CA-7 software issue that RBS couldn't have foreseen. >>>> >>>> Mark >>>> -- >>>> Mark Zelden - Zelden Consulting Services - z/OS, OS/390 and MVS >>>> mailto:m...@mzelden.com >>>> Mark's MVS Utilities: http://www.mzelden.com/mvsutil.html >>>> Systems Programming expert at http://expertanswercenter.techtarget.com/ >>>> >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >>>> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> John Blythe Reid, >>> Técnico de Sistemas de z/OS y de Sistemas Transaccionales, >>> Barcelona, >>> España. >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >>> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >>> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
