The Future of the Mainframe
Today we have some feedback from readers regardign they experience working with the Mainfame computer for the last couple fo decades…
Alexander writes:
I started as a mainframe developer back in 1994 when COBOL was still taught in universities in the US. However, after Y2K and the resulting advent of outsourcing I haven’t worked on the mainframe in over 5 years. I work for a major IT services company in the UK now, and nearly all of the mainframe work has been ‘offshored’. Therefore, any requirement to learn mainframe technology for western workers is nearly gone in terms of those working for IT services companies that don’t supply mainframe hardware (e.g. IBM).
What mainframe development work I’ve seen over the last few years is limited to keeping the system running. Otherwise, there are pockets of production support. In most cases even the design and architecture has been ‘offshored’. If we do engage with a client that runs strategic applications on the mainframe the support of those platforms are quickly ‘offshored’ within appropriately 2 years from the start of the contract. This decision isn’t done without the client’s knowledge but is part of agreement contract.
It’s a shame that mainframe work has nearly disappeared for the western Worker. Most of us have either transitioned to different technologies, different roles (e.g. project management), or become contractors/consultants as there is still work out there for individuals, short term.
Thank you from bringing up this topic but I can’t help feeling that its about 8 years too late. The industry that we work in is extremely forward looking and little to no thought or concern is given to those that supported older technology once the work disappears.
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A Master’s Degree is not All Useless Theory
Today I’d like to consider my previous statement about new graduates with useless Master’s degrees, in an effort to clarify and apologize for generalization. I had one response from a reader making good points about the value they experienced from their Master’s degree training.
By generalizing the value of a Master’s degree as being theoretical and useless, I have ostracized many who have gained useful skills in their studies. For those persons, I offer my humble apologies.
This last couple of years I have been interviewing candidates for software development. Six of them were recent graduates or finishing up their last year of Master’s studies, all in computer science. Out of the six interviews, none of them could tell me:
- what an interface was, or why it is valuable
- how to determine if one number is evenly divisible by another number
- what a method having single responsibility means. When told the meaning, they couldn’t reason why it would be important
Correct me if I’m wrong…but I don’t think these are trick questions. These are simple basic building blocks of Object Oriented software development and software operators (Modulo),tools they claimed to possess. Frankly, I found them in a book titled Object Oriented Software for Dummies.
As another example, I worked with a fellow a while back having a Masters degree in fuzzy logic. He wrote a SQL statement that was SOOOO bad we couldn’t stop the query from running and consuming all of the server resources. We literally had to pull the power cord to stop his nightmare.
My thoughts were based on this experience, but the generalized comment clearly isn’t representative of a Master’s degree, but these individuals.
Have a comment you would like to share, drop a note to btaylor@sswug.org. Tomorrow we’ll be talking about how to let the views get out of control in your databases.
Cheers,
Ben
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