Wow... I'm used to dealing with mainframe apps that also dump data to a satellite relational database in real timem, and even Unisys has CIFS integration now in their mainframe lines (well, on the 2200 side of life, anyway).
Given that kind of turnaround, I can see why folks are wanting changes, but I don't thing the mainframe itself is the issue. Maybe the software designer...
They equate "old technology" with someone shoving a stack of paper cards into a steam-powered box the size of a warehouse.
They don't understand that some people were writing multi-activity programs (that's multi-threaded for you more modern weenies) before most of the folks who read/. were even born.:-)
You don't tend to see issues like "buffer overruns" in most mainframe environments, and there's a reason for that: that type of thing was engineered out years ago. Decades ago.
Besides, I've seen online stores selling *palettes* of 486-class boxes for almost nothing that would probably still run that older application, and one of those would give him spare hardware for the next several hundred years.:-)
...but rather the database and transaction (or batch) environment that the COBOL itself runs in.
An IBM CICS programmer familiar with DB2 would have a tough time coming into a Unisys A-series shop that uses COMS and DMSII, not to mention the culture shock when his JCL-conditioned mind runs into a job control language like WFL.:-) Although he might survive the shock if he's been exposed to REXX...
When I worked for a major airline, the flight planning system I supported and helped enhance was written in Fortran and running on a Unisys 2200 mainframe (which is an older architecture but also a fairly reliable and *modern* platform in terms of its actual hardware).
Fortran was (and is) a perfect language for the type of problem being solved, since a lot of it actually does involve semi-complex calculations.
The mainframe platform is also ideal, as the system is designed as a centralized software app running on a large-scale server and being used by folks all over the world on remote terminals (be they "green screens" or web clients).
Sometimes the older languages and platforms in use really *are* a good fit. Or is it change for changes sake that you're asking for?
However, when one is looking for work, it seems that one is usually labelled as a "specialist" in whatever technical platform and language used in the last position.
A person with both good knowledge of C and good knowledge of COBOL is usually seen as being a "COBOL programmer" if their last work experience was mainly writing COBOL code.
It sounds silly, I know, but that's what I've seen (and what many others I know have also seen) in the current job market.
Unfortunately, most employers are looking for production work experience with those languages.
That's what causes the classic "chicken-and-egg" problem where there are many skilled technical people out there who could actually do the work required but who aren't seen as being qualified because of their lack of formal experience with a specific technical tool.
Why should I be penalized just because I happen to have robust spam filters in place (and can use my real e-mail address on USENET and other forums with very little concern)?
I like making my address visible. It should be my choice, not the choice of the archiving service that is deciding to save and redisplay my messages...
IBM PCCO was never a friend of OS/2; they wanted to move hardware even if it meant bundling Windows to do it, and their attitude and actions damaged OS/2 in many ways back ni the early/mid 90's.
If Microsoft was OS/2's greatest "enemy", IBM's PC company may well have been its second-greatest.:-(
I've not used any less than a few years old, but the IBM "IntelliStation" line of business-oriented x86 workstations has always been solid, sophisticated, and fairly standard in terms of components used.
IBM's consumer PC lines might be different - I've not used one of those since the first IBM AT was released.:-)
...when I graduated from a Minnesota state university (Mankato State) with a BSCS back in 1987, it made a large difference to my first employer (Unisys Corp) because the folks at Unisys knew quite well that Mankato State (and St. Cloud State) both produced CompSci people with solid experience on Unisys 2200-series mainframes.
That's the platform we did most of our coursework on, and of course was also the platform that they were wanting people to write code on.
A few other employers also knew the relatively good quality of the CS program at MSU compared to other local schools at the time and indicated to me during interviews that MSU grads were given some preference, so the school actually *did* make a difference, at least at that time.
I have no idea how good their program is now, or whether or not it makes any difference anymore...
The economy here seems consideraby better than what I was seeing in the Twin Cities. There's a lot of new construction, especially office buildings, and I can't remember the last time I saw much of that in the southern or western Minneapolis suburbs.
I suspect some areas of the country were hit a lot harder than others.
(1) many companies require the use of their own company-specific resume format (through websites that use a specific application form) and
(2) are doing do the vast majority of filtering based on the above document plus the short cover letter that a candidate presents,
most people applying for a given position are cut before being granted even a telephone interview.
At what stage of the hiring process is a candidate actually given an opportunity to demonstrate their "communications skills", ability to work with a team, or personality?
They advertised a free unit givaway contest on that screen a number of months ago, and in the past week or so they placed an ad on a pause screen for a special deal on additional units for existing ReplayTV customers.
I don't have a problem with ReplayTV using their own service for advertising as long as the ads are not intrusive, and their current method meets that criterion (IMO).
The 5500 series removed the automatic commercial skipping feature that I love so much on my 5040, making the newer units somewhat less useful (though the 5500 units still puts marks around the commercials in the recording so you can use the ShowNav buttons to manually skip around them).
Still, it makes me glad that I purchased my ReplayTV unit when I did...:-)
"Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. "
Who has to recite "Under God"...?
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
The Pledge of Allegiance hasn't been regularly recited in public schools (as far as I know) for almost 20 years.
The Zmodem protocol could reduce its block size automagically to deal with noisy lines (which reduced the amount of data in each packet resend), it had a resume feature so one could start a prematurely terminated download from the point it left off, and programs like Telemate had a nice way of displaying a batch status screen if one was downloading a large number of files in a single batch (it showed what percentage of the total download was completed as well as the percentage of each file as it was downloading).
There are a lot of FTP clients and browsers out there that could learn a thing or two about download status displays from those older DOS communications programs...
Slashdot Mirror
Wow... I'm used to dealing with mainframe apps that also dump data to a satellite relational database in real timem, and even Unisys has CIFS integration now in their mainframe lines (well, on the 2200 side of life, anyway).
Given that kind of turnaround, I can see why folks are wanting changes, but I don't thing the mainframe itself is the issue. Maybe the software designer...
The EU Council is accused of 'last-minute manoeuvring'...
They equate "old technology" with someone shoving a stack of paper cards into a steam-powered box the size of a warehouse.
/. were even born. :-)
They don't understand that some people were writing multi-activity programs (that's multi-threaded for you more modern weenies) before most of the folks who read
You don't tend to see issues like "buffer overruns" in most mainframe environments, and there's a reason for that: that type of thing was engineered out years ago. Decades ago.
Besides, I've seen online stores selling *palettes* of 486-class boxes for almost nothing that would probably still run that older application, and one of those would give him spare hardware for the next several hundred years. :-)
Sounds to me like he's got a sane idea.
As far as I know, most of those aren't acronyms anymore. There ain't no other way to express 'em.
...but rather the database and transaction (or batch) environment that the COBOL itself runs in.
:-) Although he might survive the shock if he's been exposed to REXX...
An IBM CICS programmer familiar with DB2 would have a tough time coming into a Unisys A-series shop that uses COMS and DMSII, not to mention the culture shock when his JCL-conditioned mind runs into a job control language like WFL.
When I worked for a major airline, the flight planning system I supported and helped enhance was written in Fortran and running on a Unisys 2200 mainframe (which is an older architecture but also a fairly reliable and *modern* platform in terms of its actual hardware).
Fortran was (and is) a perfect language for the type of problem being solved, since a lot of it actually does involve semi-complex calculations.
The mainframe platform is also ideal, as the system is designed as a centralized software app running on a large-scale server and being used by folks all over the world on remote terminals (be they "green screens" or web clients).
Sometimes the older languages and platforms in use really *are* a good fit. Or is it change for changes sake that you're asking for?
However, when one is looking for work, it seems that one is usually labelled as a "specialist" in whatever technical platform and language used in the last position.
A person with both good knowledge of C and good knowledge of COBOL is usually seen as being a "COBOL programmer" if their last work experience was mainly writing COBOL code.
It sounds silly, I know, but that's what I've seen (and what many others I know have also seen) in the current job market.
Unfortunately, most employers are looking for production work experience with those languages.
That's what causes the classic "chicken-and-egg" problem where there are many skilled technical people out there who could actually do the work required but who aren't seen as being qualified because of their lack of formal experience with a specific technical tool.
Why should I be penalized just because I happen to have robust spam filters in place (and can use my real e-mail address on USENET and other forums with very little concern)?
I like making my address visible. It should be my choice, not the choice of the archiving service that is deciding to save and redisplay my messages...
IBM PCCO was never a friend of OS/2; they wanted to move hardware even if it meant bundling Windows to do it, and their attitude and actions damaged OS/2 in many ways back ni the early/mid 90's.
:-(
If Microsoft was OS/2's greatest "enemy", IBM's PC company may well have been its second-greatest.
I've not used any less than a few years old, but the IBM "IntelliStation" line of business-oriented x86 workstations has always been solid, sophisticated, and fairly standard in terms of components used.
:-)
IBM's consumer PC lines might be different - I've not used one of those since the first IBM AT was released.
...when I graduated from a Minnesota state university (Mankato State) with a BSCS back in 1987, it made a large difference to my first employer (Unisys Corp) because the folks at Unisys knew quite well that Mankato State (and St. Cloud State) both produced CompSci people with solid experience on Unisys 2200-series mainframes.
That's the platform we did most of our coursework on, and of course was also the platform that they were wanting people to write code on.
A few other employers also knew the relatively good quality of the CS program at MSU compared to other local schools at the time and indicated to me during interviews that MSU grads were given some preference, so the school actually *did* make a difference, at least at that time.
I have no idea how good their program is now, or whether or not it makes any difference anymore...
Older folks like me (yep, I'm gonna turn *42*) aren't really what the military is looking for. :-)
The economy here seems consideraby better than what I was seeing in the Twin Cities. There's a lot of new construction, especially office buildings, and I can't remember the last time I saw much of that in the southern or western Minneapolis suburbs.
I suspect some areas of the country were hit a lot harder than others.
Given that
(1) many companies require the use of their own company-specific resume format (through websites that use a specific application form) and
(2) are doing do the vast majority of filtering based on the above document plus the short cover letter that a candidate presents,
most people applying for a given position are cut before being granted even a telephone interview.
At what stage of the hiring process is a candidate actually given an opportunity to demonstrate their "communications skills", ability to work with a team, or personality?
I'd be curious to see a sampling of resumes of the people that they've rejected, along with their reasons for doing so.
They advertised a free unit givaway contest on that screen a number of months ago, and in the past week or so they placed an ad on a pause screen for a special deal on additional units for existing ReplayTV customers.
I don't have a problem with ReplayTV using their own service for advertising as long as the ads are not intrusive, and their current method meets that criterion (IMO).
Even though the firmware has been updated, that feature hasn't been removed from the 5000-series units.
If you can find an older model unit, that feature will still be there...
The 5500 series removed the automatic commercial skipping feature that I love so much on my 5040, making the newer units somewhat less useful (though the 5500 units still puts marks around the commercials in the recording so you can use the ShowNav buttons to manually skip around them).
:-)
Still, it makes me glad that I purchased my ReplayTV unit when I did...
Interested people can check the EFF's FAQ about Fair Use for more information...
Audio Home Recording Act of 1992
Section 1008 is interesting:
"Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. "
The Pledge of Allegiance hasn't been regularly recited in public schools (as far as I know) for almost 20 years.
What *is* the correct term for the "@" symbol?
The Zmodem protocol could reduce its block size automagically to deal with noisy lines (which reduced the amount of data in each packet resend), it had a resume feature so one could start a prematurely terminated download from the point it left off, and programs like Telemate had a nice way of displaying a batch status screen if one was downloading a large number of files in a single batch (it showed what percentage of the total download was completed as well as the percentage of each file as it was downloading).
There are a lot of FTP clients and browsers out there that could learn a thing or two about download status displays from those older DOS communications programs...