RE: Recommendations for a newcomer?

Interesting. I know from having lived in the Bay Area (Martinez) that many
of the wineries have or used to have IBM midrange machines.

I think Chouinard & Myhre even marketed winery management software.

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 512-392-2577
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Clay B Carley
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 10:58 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Recommendations for a newcomer?

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not just out of school, but in my mid 30's and have been working
with Linux systems for quite a while now. I've got some background with
C/C++ (and Pascal "back in the day") but now working in the NOC for a
local service provider, Sonic.net, in Santa Rosa, CA. In the NOC, I
don't get to practice my programming much if at all, although have been
doing some bash scripting here & there to make my job easier.

There was 1 AS/400 job locally listed a month or two ago; a part time
system operations position at Korbel. These jobs do seem few and far
between in this area, no doubt, but I'm willing to wait & see what may
turn up. Having collocation here at Sonic, there's not only a few
customer iSeries machines but even one S/390, so I know they are "here".

As to where I'm picking up these skills... I've been purchasing books
since acquiring the 170 I found locally on craigslist. It may not be
the fastest system, but I'm enjoying learning about all of the built in
functionality that the system and OS brings. Honestly, CL seems pretty
straightforward, COBOL doesn't appear to be too difficult, but I'm still
getting through RPG.

Thanks,
Clay Carley

Stone, Joel wrote:

The answer depends on your current skill-set, years-to-retirement,

geographic location of where you will reside next year, etc.

The obvious answer is to look at the job web-sites like Craigslist,

Monster, DICE, etc for your geo location.

Are there dozens of RPG or COBOL listings? If yes, consider learning

these tools. More than likely there are few in your area.

If you have no computer background, pick up skills where the jobs are (C#,

Java, SQL, SAP, etc) and where public education is available (not RPG and
not COBOL).

If you have all the popular skills, why would you look at landing a job

with legacy software? Only makes sense if you are within 5 or 10 years of
retirement.

Most Iseries shops are transitioning AWAY from RPG and COBOL, although it

may take 5 or 10 years to arrive. Many are moving to ERP or other packages
such as JDE or SAP. None of these platforms run RPG or COBOL in their
current flagship versions.

And where would you pick up the skills? There are no community colleges

that teach RPG or COBOL or CL anymore (maybe in India??)

No platform is uncool by itself, only in the context that there is limited

earning ability associated with it.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx

[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Clay B Carley

Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 10:06 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Recommendations for a newcomer?

Being new to midrange systems, I'm attempting to pick up skills that
will be useful for me in the future, in hopes to get a job working with
them. Reading articles that say things like COBOL is uncool, and RPG is
worse isn't really giving me hope for a future working with a midrange
system though.

Is it going to be worth my time to learn things like CL, COBOL, and RPG
now? Or are they fading away? It would be pretty sad to finally become
proficient with these languages, only to find out that they are dead and
replaced with <blah> instead.

What would you recommend a newcomer focus on (aside from system

operations)?

Reading Rob's message from last week regarding "20 years of experience,
versus one year of experience repeated 20 times" looks like a pretty
good starting place I suppose. I'm really trying to look at where we're
going to be in the years to come, not necessarily tomorrow.

Thanks for any suggestions,
Clay Carley