The article which started this discussion suggested that people be given 10% free time to explore the systems and to learn by doing. Once again, decisions are made, which make it extremely difficult to put in that time for personal development.
I got into REXX just a month after I learnt what a mainframe is. Although I was working to improve the existing processes, most of the time spent was non-office hours. - Vignesh Mainframe Admin -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gerhard Postpischil Sent: 23 April 2014 14:57 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Sorry state of IT education? On 4/23/2014 8:56 AM, Sankaranarayanan, Vignesh wrote: > Are we supposed to magically grow skills when it's known that there's a > massive competency gap? > > I think I digress ... In the sixties I was a competent ForTran and assembler (FAP and MAP) programmer on the 700/7000 series, with experience on several plotters; the company I worked for put me on a government contract to convert a sizable 7094 plot package to 360 assembler. My first ASM/F assembly had 6000 lines of errors. I gained experience from reading the manuals, testing, followed by going back to manuals ( with AHA! moments), etc. The company also had a policy of tasking employees not currently on a contract to nurse the system (DOS to start with, PCP, then MFT II later), which is how I got hooked on systems work. While IBM provided (expensive) training courses, they were never as good as real-life experience. Nowadays companies need to assess applicant skills, but are not willing to pay for (third party?) testing, even though it would save them money. A small ISV I did consulting work for exemplifies this - their flagship package kept bombing - two programmers they hired for upgrades had inserted things like MVC byte,C'A', instead of MVI or =C'A'. Gerhard Postpischil Bradford, Vermont ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN MARKSANDSPENCER.COM ________________________________ Unless otherwise stated above: Marks and Spencer plc Registered Office: Waterside House 35 North Wharf Road London W2 1NW Registered No. 214436 in England and Wales. Telephone (020) 7935 4422 Facsimile (020) 7487 2670 www.marksandspencer.com Please note that electronic mail may be monitored. This e-mail is confidential. If you received it by mistake, please let us know and then delete it from your system; you should not copy, disclose, or distribute its contents to anyone nor act in reliance on this e-mail, as this is prohibited and may be unlawful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
