Yes, explaining to them that files are not an unstructured byte stream but a collection of structured records (with no line endings!) tends to elicit confusion. The most interesting way to explain it I once saw was to describe file allocation as "setting the SHAPE of the file so the system knows how to store the records".
And yes, like you I am looking back at more than 50 years -- and still learning! Peter -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Bob Bridges Sent: Friday, February 24, 2023 4:04 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: zOSMF and zOWE for non-mainframers Oh, I was going to mention that surely allocating datasets, either in batch or TSO, has got to seem like one of the dumbest and most incomprehensible things we do on the mainframe, to a foreigner. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, February 24, 2023 16:01 In the semi-famous Logica hack in Sweden - I did some research into the details, some years ago - the intruders seemed competent to write their own binary code and run it in OMVS. But they bogged down when they had to link-edit something; they had a number of failures because of a laughably bad JOB card, and eventually gave up. In Unix they were perfectly comfortable, but JCL conquered them. I was tempted to sneer at the time ("can't even be bothered to read an error message!"), but I've been learning mainframe for 30 years now. Wait, 40 years? My gosh, 50, almost! I gotta learn to subtract faster than that. Anyway, I've forgotten more than they're likely ever to learn, as the saying goes (and I'm by no means expert), so it's probably well to keep in mind that it wasn't obvious to me at first, either. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Farley, Peter Sent: Friday, February 24, 2023 12:23 ....I have been using the IBM Zxplore website on my own time for over a year now for enhanced learning of some of the "new" technologies available on our mainframe systems, and I have been consistently surprised to observe the actual difficulties that genuine newcomers to mainframe systems have with many fundamental concepts that we take for granted. The "almost tree-like (but not really)" structure of mainframe datasets and the use (and mis-use) of JCL seem to be the most frequent cause of misunderstanding and errors, along with learning to read and understand the messages generated from a batch job or utility execution. It isn't the client-side tool interface (VSCode vs TSO/ISPF) that gives most of the newcomers fits, they seem to pick that up without too many problems. It's the fundamental system operational differences that make it harder for them to grasp, at least at first. -- This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
