Hi Bill,
Besides showing arrogance, you're displaying your ignorance as well.
You said: "...Unless you work for IBM, you’re likely an installer ..."
For your information, I have a combined CompSci degree with business and
mathematics from University of Toronto, the best school in Canada.
I've worked at IBM and other employers and have done Systems Programming
at all of these shops.
My jobs all included programming Assembler for VM, VS/1 and MVS (OS/390,
z/OS etc.).
Again, if you can't/won't program Assembler, you're simply not a
SysProg. How sad.
Regards,.
David
On 2023-09-03 20:06, Bill Johnson wrote:
Degrees are never relevant to the non-degreed. Unless you work for IBM, you’re
likely an installer of zOS.
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
On Sunday, September 3, 2023, 7:14 PM, [email protected] <[email protected]>
wrote:
None of "DB2 DBA, DASD Admin, contractor, programmer analyst, manager of operations,
programmer, and Operations" are system programming -- so aren't relevant to this
discussion.
Many people calling themselves system programmers are in fact
installers/configurers/administrators. Those are all useful, but also aren't
what most people consider system programming.
Without assembler skills, how do you program -- or even fully understand --
systems written in assembler?
What I described doing is what most people consider system programming --
maintaining/developing/enhancing system-level software -- and involved skills
shared by all the others on my teams at Mitre and VMSG. Someone without
assembler fluency would have been useless in both places.
Degrees aren't relevant -- that's...
The credentials fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone dismisses
an argument by stating that whoever made it doesn't have proper credentials, so
their argument must be wrong or unimportant.
...some of the best system programmers I've known had no degree. So good for
you, degree in math and CS -- but so what?
In this discussion, you're downplaying yourself with uninformed comments.
As a system programmer without assembler skills, what did you DO? Not where did
you work, what did you do that was system programming?
And resorting to name calling, the last resort of bad arguments?
On Sun, 3 Sep 2023 22:38:25 +0000, Bill Johnson <[email protected]> wrote:
Sure David, I’ve never been a Systems Programmer other than the last 19 years.
Before that, I was a DB2 DBA, DASD Admin, contractor, programmer analyst, manager
of operations, programmer, and Operations for one of the largest auto companies on
the planet. I’ve worked in numerous industries, large and small companies, and have
a Math & Computer Science degree. Not the idiotic 2 year tech degree that many
colleges created to fast track kids into a burgeoning IT industry. But keep trying
to downplay me idiot.
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
On Sunday, September 3, 2023, 5:24 PM, David Spiegel
<[email protected]> wrote:
HI Bill,
More vacuous and specious arguments.
You said: "... In fact, making changes to delivered software can be
dangerous. ..."
Writing/modifying Exits is not the same as your statement.
It is evident from what you've written, that you've never been a Systems
Programmer, the highest mainframe technical calling.
Yes, I am being elitist. People who can't/won't code Assembler should
know their place and should not be so arrogant in groups like this.
It almost seems like you're jealous of those of us who do this for a living.
It took 3 of you to modify an IEFUSI?! Hah! How freaking "bush league".
Grow up and learn some Assembler.
Regards,
David
On 2023-09-03 12:37, Bill Johnson wrote:
1 persons experience doesn’t prove anything. The fact is assembler is becoming
less and less important as a skillset. Anyone who thinks learning it now is a
worthwhile exercise is a fool. Yeah, I went through college when Assembler was
a mandatory course and COBOL was an elective. Guess which was infinitely more
critical in my career! In college we coded almost exclusively in PL/I, which
I’ll bet was in deference to IBM. Never used it once in the real world. Like I
mentioned previously, one professor said there’s no reason to learn JCL because
it will be obsolete soon. That was 1980. JCL was probably the most important
skill of my career. I did make one misstatement earlier about never using
Assembler. One time around 2010, we needed to change IEFUSI. Three of us were
able to make the necessary adjustments.
In 40+ years in IT, 20+ in tech support, other than the one time mentioned
above, none of my colleagues ever needed to make changes to assembler code. In
fact, making changes to delivered software can be dangerous.
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
On Sunday, September 3, 2023, 11:45 AM, [email protected] <[email protected]>
wrote:
I've only had three jobs (3, 14, 6 years duration) before switching to
freelance writing/editing/consulting in 1994. But I'll chime in anyway with my
experience using assembler as a critical part of my work. I learned and used it
at IBM doing operating system development.
Second job was at Mitre Corporation in Virginia, where we installed early VM. I developed
tools such as a system automation tool used widely in the VM community. Same for an early
system performance monitor, also widely used. I enhanced the interface routine for IBM's
OS-based GPSS simulation tool to support external calls to assembler code, needed by a
user. I and other system programmers developed many other assembler-based tools which met
the needs of our users, who worked on various government-sponsored projects. A noteworthy
project for me was getting graphics software developed for CP/67 CMS to work under
VM/370 CMS, allowing a sophisticated simulation system to drive an IBM 2250 graphics
display device. That application modeled air traffic control, allowing someone in the
data center to "fly" a Linc Trainer small aircraft which interacted with
simulated aircraft on 2250 screen to model different collision avoidance algorithms. The
graphic software was many thousand lines of assembler (with comments in French, since it
had been developed at University of Grenoble). We also -- as did the rest of the VM
community -- used assembler to understand, debug, fix, and enhance VM.
Third job was at VM Systems Group, small vendor
developing/marketing/selling/supporting enterprise software. Two early products
allowed taking snap dumps of the system and intercepting and avoiding VM ABENDs
-- written in assembler, of course, since they integrated into IBM supplied
operating system code.
So assembler has been a lifelong part of what I consider to be system
programming. And as others have noted, it's also occasionally essential in
meeting application requirements. It also provides a good conceptual
understanding of how things work at a lower level than that of high-level
languages, so was helpful in understanding/explaining to users what was going
in on in their applications.
On Fri, 1 Sep 2023 14:43:36 +0000, Bill Johnson <[email protected]> wrote:
Which proves my point from a prior thread that coding and using assembler is
almost nonexistent.
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