Re: Newbie Questions

Dean,

My first exposure to the S/38 was shortly after it came out.  The source
editor worked on your one and only copy of the source code, unless you were
careful to clone it first!  The system we had would periodically wander off
on its own and do -something.-  Fortunately, if you left it alone for about
an hour, it would wander back and respond to your requests again.

Having 'grown up' with the S/38 and the AS/400, watching all of the things
get added on, enhanced, improved, and streamlined, it's hard to imagine a
"Newbie" being thrown into the entire AS/400 ocean headfirst, without a
life preserver (let along a life raft), and attempt to make sense of the
basic things:  logical files. Members of files.  Join files.  Work
management, including routing programs, classes, jobd descriptions, job
queues, subsystems, and all that stuff. Queues: job, message, out, and
data.  Communications: Lines, controllers, devices.  TCP/IP, SNADS, SNA,
and all the rest.  COMMANDS!  The program the command uses.  The parameter
validation program.  Referential integrity.  Triggers.  Roy Rogers (sorry).

How does someone understand the relationships between all of the pieces: LF
to PF to join file.  Jobq to executing program to outq.  How to submit a
job using the parameters stored in the JOBD, class, user profile, and the
interactive job.  How do you find you reports, based on the queue specified
in the user profile, the jobd, the class, the SBMJOB command, and the print
file?

In short, there's a lot to learn!  When I first learned Fortran, they gave
us a single piece of paper and said, "Put these cards at the beginning of
your deck, these at the back, and it'll work."  Remember cards?

Now, to even get to the "Hello World" stage in programming the AS400, you
have to know how to use PDM or SEU, RPG or RPG/ILE, and display files.
Then you have to compile the program (and the display file): interactively
or submitted to batch.  If you submit it to batch, which jobq in which
subsystem do you put it?

If we expect Newbies to do more with the AS/400 than just cringe in
amazement that it even works, we have to help them learn how the pieces fit
together.

The questions may be 'boring' or 'simple' or 'totally clueless,' but
they're the only way someone with zero experience can solve the problems
that even a manual won't answer.  What manual tells you that a RETURN in a
COBOL program only works 'properly' if there's another COBOL program higher
up in the invocation stack?

Welcome, Newbies!  It's uphill all the way, but the view is tremendous!

--Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@ix.netcom.com




>Hello All,
>
>I may be wrong here but would like to start a discussion, if warranted, on the
>above subject.  In other words, respond to the list if you take issue with
>what I'm about to say, _NOT_ offline.  There have been several questions
>posted lately from AS/400 newbies and, frankly, I was _APPALLED_ at some of
>your responses.  Try to remember that the majority of AS/400 _PROFESSIONALS_
>couldn't find this list (or anything else on the Internet) with both hands and
>a flashlight.  Those of you that have moved from RPG or COBOL to OO should
>recall how difficult _that_ transition was at first -- just try to imagine
>moving the _OTHER_ way.
>
>Granted some of the questions were a little lower-level than we are used to
>seeing here; however, IMO this list is for the free exchange of information
>regarding the AS/400 and IBM midrange systems at large to _ALL_ people
>regardless of talent level (or employment situation).  Also IMO, get used to
>it -- thanks in part to the efforts of people here, more people are
>discovering the AS/400 that are already OO/Internet-savvy, and those forced
>into 3GL's will inevitably ask questions like these.  If you don't have
>anything constructive to say and its' not a "spammer", please don't say
>anything at all -- we need all the AS/400 talent we can get...at _ALL_
>levels...
>
>JMHO,
>
>Dean Asmussen
>Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
>Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
>E-Mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com
>
>"I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages." -- Bill Mauldin


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