As you mentioned, Scott, it's the "awareness" and not so much the interest
(can't be interested in something you aren't aware of)...that was a better
way to put it. I KNOW that there would be plenty of interest once the
awareness was there.
Like the NHL, for instance, since this relates to a peeve of mine.
Regardless of most non-fan opinions, why is the Stanley Cup (or many
broadcasts) not on network TV?? Yeah, yeah, TV hockey may be hard for some
people to watch and that's usually the excuse...but, why can the rest of us
fans watch it? I'll stay away from the "brainwashing" aspects of TV and
commercialism for now, but generally...it's (IMO) a lack of awareness of
the game, which leads to lack of interest in hockey overall. Interest is
built upon foundations of awareness. I've seen plenty of non-fans turn
into fans after having a few things explained and/or having just watched a
series of hockey matches on TV (obviously working best with someone who is
already interested/passionate). Watching in person helps even more, and
actually playing the sport can *really* help (e.g. hands on experience).
Heck, I've witnessed people who play NHL video games suddenly gain high
interest in the sport as well.
Of course, the individual and the complexity of the matter are factors as
well, and should not be overlooked. Sometimes externals need to be
altered. In this case, universities and IBM need to be involved and need
to work together.
When you are a student, you have the choice of attending a college that has
the equipment and classes to teach mainframe-related skills...how many
colleges implement this nowadays? Perhaps a survey/study could be
conducted, if not already known. I would bet that the professors could
still be able to blow the dust off their old text's, however; the
curriculum would need to be updated, of course. But, once again...we come
down to the fact that the courses aren't offered (or had been dropped long
ago) and the lab equipment is now UNIX (usually) or Intel, with not a
mainframe in sight due to budgeting restrictions (which, obviously makes
sense if you don't use it)
I have felt that co-op/internship programs are the channels that need to be
tackled. This opportunity to provide mainframe services should not be
monopolized by any one corporation either, but should be a joint effort by
all companies. If the student wants to learn IBM assembler skills, then
perhaps that can be a specific course offered once a year...whatever suits
the university and whatever keeps options OPEN to everyone. Corporate
reign has no place in a university (though, we obviously see plenty of
examples all over), but corporate assistance, in order to help the general
efforts of building mainframe interest in a general manner is possible. In
other words...don't lose the UNIX and Intel-based classes with a corporate
contract or something, though I can't really see that happening anytime
soon. :)
On another note, I really admire those older programmers that started, more
or less, "from scratch". Many students are being taught at high-levels now
and are not exposed to the inner workings and microcode as one *had* to be,
in some cases. Fortunately, my first job at 14 was to build and repair IBM
PC clones for a small company on Long Island. I mean....er....SUN
clones...yeah. That gave me the awareness I needed to fuel my natural
passion to analyze...and I gained interest from then on, writing programs
in BASIC, Pascal and C. That was around '92...nowadays, virtualization is
my interest, as it's an old, brilliantly efficient technology that I had
become aware of not to long ago.
Keep the awareness, raise the interest!
Doug Ponte
z/VM, CP I/O Development and Service
zSeries, IBM - Endicott, NY USA
Scott Courtney
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> cc:
Sent by: Linux on Subject: Re: Mainframe skill shortage
390 Port
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]
IST.EDU>
2002-07-25 09:58
Please respond to
courtney
On Tuesday 23 July 2002 06:52 pm, Douglas C Ponte wrote:
[...]
> Obviously, we have a huge shortage of college-age interest in mainframes
> (but, not Linux, which I agree is a major key in solving this via
> "crossover potential") due to a few factors [...]
I spent a year writing articles about mainframe Linux, and was stunned by
the
*high* level of interest from young techies in what I thought would be
perceived as an "old clunky" technology. My first article generated over
700
emails in response, and many of them were from high school and college
Linux
advocates. In many cases they had never even seen a mainframe in person,
but
they were really impressed with what they were seeing now. I've had the
same
reaction from young engineers and programmers when I've given
presentations,
including some at LUGs.
Your comments are well-put, and I agree with most of the reasons why
mainframes
are perceived as not being needed. I would just add that in my experience
most
of the "lack of interest" is actually "lack of awareness." When people
start to
see the capability of the platform, they get interested, very rapidly.
IBM needs to find ways of reaching college students. I think the LCDS could
play a role in this -- it's a really terrific tool! Maybe some publicity of
LCDS to LUGs near major colleges would help. I'm not a marketing expert, so
I'm sure IBM can come up with something better than any idea of mine. Oh,
wait,
this is the company that de-marketed OS/2 into oblivion. Never mind. (Just
kidding, IBMers. You redeemed yourselves with The Heist commercial!)
Companies could also help. Offer internship programs that put
Linux-literate
college students in teams with mainframe wizards. That's the cheapest Linux
training you'll ever buy for your best, most experienced mainframe gurus.
And it's a great challenge for brilliant college students who probably have
exhausted the technical challenges of the Intel platform long ago. Retain
good
future talent by offering interesting and hard-to-find challenges.
[...]
>
> Going to those assembler classes didn't go well for many of the
> students...moaning and groaning for most of the way, especially in the
> beginning. Why? Boo-hoo, it's not C++. In any case, there are students
> like myself who DID find it fascinating to see how this complied C code
I'd
> been taught so much about was used as assembler...and then as
> microcode...learning about fetching, the ALU and parallel computing, etc.
> I wish they had 10 more courses, if I had known I'd be working here on
the
> z/VM product.
I can *really* relate to this! I graduated with dual degrees in EE and
CompE
from the University of Missouri (class of 1985). I was designing computers
at
home as a hobby while I was in high school, and I learned to program in
binary
(hand-assembled code) because I couldn't afford the $3500 that Intel wanted
for an assembler program for the 8080. Nor the $800 for an 8" floppy from
which
to load it.
When I taught myself machine coding, I literally didn't know there was such
a
thing as a high-level language. I got interested in computers by reading
chip
manuals, and had no idea about programming other than "that's what you have
to do to make the hardware do something cool." I thought of it as an
extension
of hardware design, a necessary evil. (Some would say that I had the right
idea...<grin>)
Naturally, by the time I entered college I knew about BASIC and FORTRAN,
but
found them to bee too confining compared to assembler. When I got to the
classes in microcode and bit-slice architectures, I was in my glory! We had
professors who were learning right along with us, playing with some of the
hottest hardware of the day. There were classes where no textbook existed
yet,
and the instructor taught from his own research notes.
My experience with other students mirrors yours very closely. In one class,
I remember there being about thirty students total. Maybe three to five of
us really wanted to be there, but we were *passionate* about it. We would
get
into arguments with the prof, right there in class, and he seemed to love
it
when that happened because it challenged his own mind more than just
teaching
to intellectual sponges. Often the discussions would spill over to his
office
afterward. The rest of the class just couldn't understand why we actually
cared whether the circuit drawing on the board was fully optimized. But we
did!
Anyway, congrats on your recent graduation and welcome to the IT field. I'm
sorry to say that we really *are* as weird as your professors warned you --
especially the VM sysadmins and the Penguins. Have fun. When it isn't fun
any
more, do something else.
Scott
(Sine Nomine Associates http://sinenomine.net/)
--
-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------
Scott Courtney | "I don't mind Microsoft making money. I mind them
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | having a bad operating system." -- Linus
Torvalds
http://4th.com/ | ("The Rebel Code," NY Times, 21 February 1999)
| PGP Public Key at
http://4th.com/keys/courtney.pubkey
