I share Allan Staller's impatience, but people outside our subculture often do not understand it.
I have recently had the instructive experience of helping some PC types to use a mainframe for "analytics", and I have had a number of 'philosophical' discussions with them as we worked on their problems. They appear to believe that periodic---weekly or more frequent---intervals of what they call "stasis" are necessary for maintenance. Their initial response tro my statement that mainframes do not have such a requirement was disbelief. There is sharp culture conflict here because nothing in their experience corresponds to our expectations. IBM's error lay, I suspect, in giving responsibility for IBMLinks, a mainframe-service system, to non-mainframe people. Frequent scheduled downtime for maintenance will never be satisfactory to us, and the maintainers of IBML:ink will never understand our objections. The IBM manager of IBMLinks needs to retain the services of a consulting social psychologist. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA t. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
