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Mainframe Techies Are A Dying Breed

Posted by timothy on from the why-in-my-day dept.

dipfan writes "Great piece in today's Financial Times on the surprising survival of mainframes - but the problem in the US is finding experienced techies to run them: "55 per cent were over 50, compared with fewer than 10 per cent of those with Unix or Windows NT server skills." Cobol programers, still needed for legacy applications, are mostly in their 40s. Help is on the way, though, thanks to IBM's use of Linux, which "freshens the labor pool" according to the article." (See also this earlier post on the mainframe-operator labor pool.)

3 of 483 comments (clear)

  1. Help Wanted by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 5, Funny
    Mainframe? Pah!

    Mainframe Techies are a dime a dozen--the real challenge is finding competent PDP8/E techies these days!

    Plunk your modern so-called "computer whiz" in front of one, and their first reaction is invariably one of the following:

    1. "Why are there so many power switches?"
    2. "Where's the keyboard?"
    3. "Where's the monitor?"
    4. "Where's the mouse?"
    5. "Why does it sound like it's about to generate lift?"
    6. "Does it support themes?"
    7. "Let's see...'HCF' instruction? Hwa? Oh, I get it--Hardware ConFiguration!" *click* AIEEEEEEEEE!
    8. "'Switch Register'? Sorry, I never register anything. It's a government ploy to learn my phone number and address!"
    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  2. Re:A question... by number6x · · Score: 5, Funny
    According to the Devil's IT Dictionary:

    mainframe n. An obsolete device still used by thousands of obsolete companies serving billions of obsolete customers and making huge obsolete profits for their obsolete shareholders. And this year's run twice as fast as last year's.

    pretty accurate.
  3. Re:Employers' fault... by LePrince · · Score: 5, Funny
    Hire me ! I have plenty of experience with RPG. I finished Final Fantasy 1 to 3, 7 to 10, and I promise I'll do my best while working for you to finish the new releases on time. I also have good experience with Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire, 7th Saga, Zelda, and many others...

    Oh, not THAT kind of RPG... ;-)