> While it's certainly not impossible, it's certainly very difficult to retrain > a > HLASM programmer to Java, Python, Javascript etc. It's not because > they're not smart enough, they just don't want to.
I've always expected programmers to learn new languages as needed, and for me it's recreation, at least if the new language is halfway decent. During the last half century at least 70% of my colleagues have been willing to learn new things. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on behalf of David Crayford [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 3:25 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Holy Moly ... You make some good points in this post. None of us on this forum are getting any younger and IBM-MAIN doesn't seem to attract young people who prefer platforms like Stack Overflow or Slack workspaces. It may be an unpopular opinion, but it's important to concentrate on millenials now. A large percentage of developers in my location are in their 60s and close to retirement. It's not easy to train young people to back-fill as our legacy products are written in HLASM and require deep technical knowledge of MVS subsystems. It's optimistic to speculate that it will take 5 years to bring somebody up to speed when it's probably more like 10. We hope that now we are all working from home that some of our guys will go on until 70. We are also modernizing our products and for that we need young guys. While it's certainly not impossible, it's certainly very difficult to retrain a HLASM programmer to Java, Python, Javascript etc. It's not because they're not smart enough, they just don't want to. On 14/2/22 10:10 pm, René Jansen wrote: > It is not so much about capitalism as it is about respectful use of language > to describe groups of people. > https://secure-web.cisco.com/1hbRn4svJaIpvL51GjxS6CwtmmudqfSvOtlkj1xCgRXIQUrfgAAyLoZjMau3sMlJrkXiGDhJDKsV8kzqhY9IWnGkHb2hu7ujEPmwjw42q5uCjMIRWagjWexOUlMpqT2eozNHcxvHTlSN3I0-cqZwu6PPDAcscL_MH8A0ZIcOGMTb5OYp2C3DQFnXEMyTRY88GJAUF_qIboleCbk7W7linAH5AwhklACt6Spd7a2JDIHiDq6hhhr7Mcifk_kB0nlhsDqVyix10cGO1J1ZZM3XFbP6xrU-yvpXLGSrowpLTJZOierIKj-j_QIK7AkbNGVDn0R9NbR5ThCSVzv0iy2UH7Y775mYBra1H5jjl2bsIqoiEhanMy4Jmqz1R3HaPMhPuFbi2Q9wFjgkNh5IclW4XYOD_ynOGfnogUE2mnLOyR_zSalsHzhp5QTZ1JgHSobLxSThLfwdplcgC_yz-8Xe9pw/https%3A%2F%2Ffeatures.propublica.org%2Fibm%2Fibm-age-discrimination-american-workers%2F > > <https://secure-web.cisco.com/1hbRn4svJaIpvL51GjxS6CwtmmudqfSvOtlkj1xCgRXIQUrfgAAyLoZjMau3sMlJrkXiGDhJDKsV8kzqhY9IWnGkHb2hu7ujEPmwjw42q5uCjMIRWagjWexOUlMpqT2eozNHcxvHTlSN3I0-cqZwu6PPDAcscL_MH8A0ZIcOGMTb5OYp2C3DQFnXEMyTRY88GJAUF_qIboleCbk7W7linAH5AwhklACt6Spd7a2JDIHiDq6hhhr7Mcifk_kB0nlhsDqVyix10cGO1J1ZZM3XFbP6xrU-yvpXLGSrowpLTJZOierIKj-j_QIK7AkbNGVDn0R9NbR5ThCSVzv0iy2UH7Y775mYBra1H5jjl2bsIqoiEhanMy4Jmqz1R3HaPMhPuFbi2Q9wFjgkNh5IclW4XYOD_ynOGfnogUE2mnLOyR_zSalsHzhp5QTZ1JgHSobLxSThLfwdplcgC_yz-8Xe9pw/https%3A%2F%2Ffeatures.propublica.org%2Fibm%2Fibm-age-discrimination-american-workers%2F> > shows that the problem is not exactly new but that the outrage then was > limited to terms like ‘grey hairs and old heads’. The following part is > interesting: > > "By the time IBM’s current CEO, Virginia “Ginni” Rometty, took over in 2012, > the company had shifted its personnel focus to millennials. > Rometty launched a major overhaul that aimed to make IBM a major player in > the emerging technologies of cloud services, big data analytics, mobile, > security and social media, or what came to be known inside as CAMS. > At the same time, she sought to sharply increase hiring of people born after > 1980. > “CAMS are driven by Millennial Traits,” declared a slide presentation for an > invitation-only IBM event in New York in December 2014. Not only were > millennials in sync with the new technologies, but they were also attuned to > the collaborative, consensus-driven modes of work these technologies > demanded, company researchers said they’d discovered. Millennials “are not > likely to make decisions in isolation,” the presentation said, but instead > “depend on analytic technologies to help them.” > By contrast, people 50 or over are “more dubious” of analytics, “place less > stock in the advantages data offers,” and are less “motivated to consult > their colleagues or get their buy in … It’s Baby Boomers who are the > outliers.” > The message was clear. To succeed at the new technologies, the company must, > in the words of the presentation, “become one with the Millennial mindset.” > Similar language found its way into a variety of IBM presentations in > subsequent years.” > > A company’s workforce needs to be sustained by its earnings - this was even > true in socialism and that is what ended it in eastern europe - you cannot > sell your grain and eat it - and IBM needed to focus on its earnings. Where > earlier cash flow and earnings were based on scientific research (much of it > publicly financed at universities) and government/defence contracts (publicly > financed) and an exemplary execution of those contracts with military > precision (which led to the tendency of dictating customers what they needed > in a command and control like structure) lead them to neglect the market and > think they could fill in the parts they missed (mini computers and personal > computers (the original PC, developed mainly by IBM'ers but outside of IBM, > was an outlier, the MCA/OS2 time did show it did not learn a lot, as did OCO) > without their earnings suffering. But this was not to be, and focus needed to > shift to cost. > > This was the time that IBM noticed it did not need a lot of managers that > flew around the world and ordered five newspapers to read for their top tier > hotel rooms. But closing down scientific centers, not having trickle down > their knowledge by opening source and interesting students for it, dried up > the sources of that competitive edge. The CAMS, as indicated above, might > very well be concepts that other companies can execute better than IBM, how > many companies it buys or dinosaurs it offloads. I have more trust in the > new chip design than in all of big data in the cloud on social media to bring > successes to IBM. The level making these decisions seems to think that > consensual decision making will help to keep it profitable seems really > outlandish - I never knew a company more hierarchical than IBM and in The > Netherlands the US management was described as ‘gravity’ - you can do nothing > about it. Pricing mainframe technology in a realistic way (hint: price > elasticity of demand, look at how the Rockhoppers are identical to the large > Z's but cost a lot less - and are still too expensive when compared to the > competition), focusing on strong points, making sure these strong points are > supported by influx in the labour markets (not really defined by age groups, > geography or other grouping, but by talent if possible), and offering the > people that made operating the company possible something more than insults, > would be a good strategy. In the end, these remarks reflect on the top level > managers and their own actions over the years. > > best regards, > > René. > > > >> On 14 Feb 2022, at 14:10, Bill Johnson >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Profits are maximized by getting rid of the older, higher cost (wages & >> health care) employees and hiring younger lower cost ones. Pretty standard >> capitalism. >> >> >> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone >> >> >> On Monday, February 14, 2022, 8:05 AM, Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> No, capitalism is designed to maximize profits. Out of control speculation >> has shifted the emphasis to cash flow, which would have appalled Adam Smith. >> >> What happens in a rational market is that employees don't give raises unless >> there is a labor shortage, and that employers try to keep productive >> workers. This is especially true when they've spent a lot of money on >> training. >> >> >> -- >> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >> http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 >> >> ________________________________________ >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on behalf of >> Bill Johnson [[email protected]] >> Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 7:59 AM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: Holy Moly ... >> >> I didn’t say YOU pushed them out the door. The cycle of replacing higher >> priced workers with lower cost ones always happens. Exactly what capitalism >> is designed to do. >> >> >> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone >> >> >> On Monday, February 14, 2022, 7:55 AM, Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> When I was young, I worked with older employees; I did not push them out the >> door. Further, there are legal limits on age discrimination. What we are >> seeing is the triumph of cash flow over profits, and it is not what >> capitalism does in a rational environment, any more than the gulag is what >> socialism does. >> >> In fact, there have been times and places where capitalism discriminated >> against younger workers and, as above, that was not intrinsic to capitalism. >> >> >> -- >> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >> http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 >> >> ________________________________________ >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on behalf of >> Bill Johnson [[email protected]] >> Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 7:43 AM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: Holy Moly ... >> >> When we were young, we helped usher out older workers & we didn’t really >> think or care about it. Now that it’s our turn in the ageist barrel, we are >> shocked & dismayed. As Steve said, not really surprising. This is exactly >> what capitalism does. >> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
