ROSCOE tutorial needed
in [Cobol]
|
Prev: SQL Commands
Next: Cobol call BPXWDYN
From: Michael Mattias on 23 Apr 2006 09:24 <docdwarf(a)panix.com> wrote in message news:e2en3v$fai$1(a)reader1.panix.com... > >> Kinda makes me wonder why someone would volunteer to work on a project > >> involving heavy use of a tool with which they had no experience. > > > >Good point. These are obviously confident people... :-) > > Not always right but never in doubt, perhaps. Or perhaps people who know their skills are portable? First 'major' contract programming engagement I got was for a major insurance company in Illinois (whose name I won't give but I will tell you I was in "good hands") who was looking for someone to handle ANSI X12 EDI format data, using IBM mainframe COBOL, with IBM DB2 database as the primary applications data storage. I had experience handling ANSI X12 data. I knew COBOL, but I could barely spell "IBM", never having seen an IBM mainframe. DB2-brand DMBS was another stranger to me, although I had done some work with other brand-name ESQL Cobol and DBMS. I was able to convince the (then prospective) client that COBOL was portable, ESQL was portable, an IBM Editor was an editor not unlike other editors I had worked with, a compile is a compile; and that developing and testing any application was hardware and operating-system independent. I essentially made them answer the question, "Do you want someone who can recite syntax from memory but not understand the application, or someone who understands the application but may have to refer the documentation from time to time to get syntax quirks unique to their envirnoment?" Bottom line: I spent nine months there; and both Allstate and I were pleased with the results. When I decided to leave to return to Wisconsin for personal reasons, they asked me to reconsider. (Nope, I wanted back to my native side of the Cheddar Curtain). As Pete says, 'tools is tools.' If you understand fundamentals, your skills are portable, even though you may have to do a 'sales' job to convince prospects of this. One of the negative byproducts of the 'modern' program development environment is that the pointy-clicky-draggy-droppy-touchy-feely development tools don't force progammers to learn fundamentals, meaning the skills they develop are not portable, and they become utterly dependent on the availability of specific brand name development tools to create anything. Combine this with the general tendency to recruit programmers with "Computer Science" degrees instead of "Three Years Industry Experience Other Than Data Processing", it is any wonder we see so many examples of application software which is technically brilliant but can't create invoices or sales orders correctly? MCM
From: on 23 Apr 2006 09:44 In article <jeL2g.74482$dW3.43732(a)newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>, Michael Mattias <michael.mattias(a)gte.net> wrote: ><docdwarf(a)panix.com> wrote in message news:e2en3v$fai$1(a)reader1.panix.com... >> >> Kinda makes me wonder why someone would volunteer to work on a project >> >> involving heavy use of a tool with which they had no experience. >> > >> >Good point. These are obviously confident people... :-) >> >> Not always right but never in doubt, perhaps. > >Or perhaps people who know their skills are portable? Another possibility, perhaps... the World is full of them! [snip] >Bottom line: I spent nine months there; and both Allstate and I were pleased >with the results. When I decided to leave to return to Wisconsin for >personal reasons, they asked me to reconsider. (Nope, I wanted back to my >native side of the Cheddar Curtain). As my Sainted Paternal Grandfather - may he sleep with the angels! - used to say, Mr Mattias, 'Never use yourself as a comparative, you'll only be disappointed.' What was requested here was not assistance for an individual but for a team of unspecified size: 'We got a project recently which involves heavy usage of ROSCOE editor. Nobody in our team has ever worked on ROSCOE.' > >As Pete says, 'tools is tools.' If you understand fundamentals, your skills >are portable, even though you may have to do a 'sales' job to convince >prospects of this. An individual's learning-curve is one thing, especially one who learns as 'I' (in the sense that my Sainted Paternal Grandfather might have intended) do... grab the manual, sit at the terminal, put in 10-hour days and tell folks to 'take a hike' when they try to disturb me. Teaching a group has, quite frequently, a different learning-curve... quite the sales job, indeed, to get the client to pay for that! DD
From: Alistair on 23 Apr 2006 12:26 Pete Dashwood wrote: > <docdwarf(a)panix.com> wrote in message news:e2ehob$23h$1(a)reader1.panix.com... > > In article <1145703087.314305.185440(a)u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com>, > > sunny <sachingupta1981(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > ROSCOE is endearingly simple and fun to write. > > A year or so later we had to move to TSO and everybody was sorry as ROSCOE > served us well. > > > > > Kind of makes me wonder > > > > A) How someone managed to sell a team for a ROSCOE-based project which has > > no ROSCOE experience. > > > > ROSCOE is trivial. > > > B) How someone managed to buy a team for a ROSCOE-based project which has > > no ROSCOE experience. > > > > ROSCOE is trivial. > > >>We have worked > >>extensively on TSO. > > > > Most folks with that background will learn ROSCOE in a day by reading the > Reference card and looking at a few Procedures. > Will you be including a chapter in your book advising the hiring of people with unrelated skillsets as a cheap alternative?
From: Alistair on 23 Apr 2006 12:26 Pete Dashwood wrote: > <docdwarf(a)panix.com> wrote in message news:e2ehob$23h$1(a)reader1.panix.com... > > In article <1145703087.314305.185440(a)u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com>, > > sunny <sachingupta1981(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > ROSCOE is endearingly simple and fun to write. > > A year or so later we had to move to TSO and everybody was sorry as ROSCOE > served us well. > > > > > Kind of makes me wonder > > > > A) How someone managed to sell a team for a ROSCOE-based project which has > > no ROSCOE experience. > > > > ROSCOE is trivial. > > > B) How someone managed to buy a team for a ROSCOE-based project which has > > no ROSCOE experience. > > > > ROSCOE is trivial. > > >>We have worked > >>extensively on TSO. > > > > Most folks with that background will learn ROSCOE in a day by reading the > Reference card and looking at a few Procedures. > Will you be including a chapter in your book advising the hiring of people with unrelated skillsets as a cheap alternative?
From: Arnold Trembley on 23 Apr 2006 15:22
Michael Mattias wrote: > (snip) > As Pete says, 'tools is tools.' If you understand fundamentals, your skills > are portable, even though you may have to do a 'sales' job to convince > prospects of this. > > One of the negative byproducts of the 'modern' program development > environment is that the pointy-clicky-draggy-droppy-touchy-feely development > tools don't force progammers to learn fundamentals, meaning the skills they > develop are not portable, and they become utterly dependent on the > availability of specific brand name development tools to create anything. On the same floor where I work on IBM mainframe COBOL applications there's another department that works on applications written in C for Sun Solaris on X86 boxes. A few years ago, they spent quite a bit of time recruiting a very experienced programmer for a critical project. On his first day, he learned that the standard editor he would be using was vi. He quit on the spot. -- http://arnold.trembley.home.att.net/ |