RE: What to teach someone new to IBMi

Don--

We've hired 2 'virgins' to the iSeries as system operators in the past few years. We generally toss them in head-first...

We have our lead operator work with them the first few weeks. Our night-time operations have reasonably complete run sheets to follow, so the basic instructions are "follow the run sheets. If something doesn't match, CALL SOMEONE! WAKE THEM UP! WE WANT YOU TO CALL!"

As their experience grows, and they get used to the way we operate, questions will follow about the 'why' and 'how come' of the way things work on this system.

Since your new folks have experience with 'other' operating systems, some of the concepts will be familiar-- they just need to know what we call it on the iSeries. It's like learning a new programming language-- you know there's a GOTO (I know, I know) and a COMEFROM statement in the language somewhere, but what did they -call- it!?


The command structure-- make sure they know the verb-noun structure of commands, and prompting for CRT* or other verbs. And message monitoring-- it's easy to overlook the hierarchy of monitoring for a specific message, or the whole family-- CPF9801 CPF9800 CPF9000 CPF0000.


When I stop to think about the System/38-AS400-iSeries systems, there's a lot to learn! The traditional 'get acquainted' job of creating a "Hello, World" program is -complicated-! First, where do you put the source code. What language? Does it have to be compiled, or will it be interpreted? Where does the program go when it's compiled? Libraries?? How do I make it run? JOBQ? Where does my printout go? Spool? OUTQ? MSGQ?

And then there's Work Management-- subsystems, routing entries, system resources-- memory pools, time slices, and all of the other stuff! Tossed in head-first indeed!


Oh-- HELP is not just F1-- F4 on a command line or to prompt a command is wonderful!


Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Don Brown
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2018 1:12 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: What to teach someone new to IBMi

I have been asked to help a new employee.

They have a Linux, Unix, Windows background and never met the awesome i.

Their role is support.

I have worked with IBM midrange since the early 70's but have not done a
lot of one on one instruction.

A lot of you have.

Any words of wisdom or more specifically any suggested agenda or methods
or comments ?

Appreciate any suggestions.

Thank you

Don Brown