Mainframe programming is decidedly un-sexy in the IT industry. But as the baby boomers skilled in maintaining mainframes retire, there is heightened demand for IT graduates to replace them, says The Chicago Tribune
Mainframes have been around for decades, but have decreased in popularity in favor of distributed computing solutions in which tasks are doled out among multiple smaller computers. COBOL or assembly language might as well be Sanskrit in the programming world.
However, many large companies still prefer to use mainframes, which are often run by an aging workforce still fluent in those “dead languages.”
Unsurprisingly, IBM, the largest producer of mainframes, has furnished Illinois State University with its System z 890 in order to train more students in mainframe technology. —Hurley Goodall
10 Responses to Programming for Mainframes Makes a Comeback
magyar - May 24, 2012 at 5:07 am
Damn! I was going to invite you to join the Hungarian network, iwiw…
rrhersh - May 24, 2012 at 7:54 am
This is what spam filters are for. I give the opt out link one chance if I think I might plausibly have actually given permission for it. Otherwise, and if the opt out link doesn’t work the first time, or if the opt out link requires me to do more than simply click it, then I shove it into the spam folder. Modern spam filters are very good. Do this a few times and soon you won’t have to see this stuff.
eeels - May 24, 2012 at 8:28 am
But if you joined Facebook you could post your skydiving pictures!
22058726 - May 24, 2012 at 10:55 am
LinkedIn has a feature that automatically invites all the contacts in one’s email address book to join the LinkedIn network. If your address somehow got into Scott’s address book, it could be this LinkedIn feature harrassing you, rather than the hapless Scott. If so, he probably has a number of folks asking him to cease and desist, and he has no idea what they are talking about.
Not sure why it would happen again and again, though. Maybe each time he gets an email from someone like you, he deletes his LinkedIn account and re-enters it, which sends out the emails again. If my theory is right, he is probably just as tired of hearing from all these people he doesn’t know as you are hearing from him. In any case, rrhersh is correct; employ your spam filter so you won’t have to bother with LinkedIn (and Scott) ever again.
theatheist - May 24, 2012 at 11:40 am
What I find interesting, Professor Pullum, are the things that presumably have not changed in 10s of thousands of years. Communication between tribes back then would almost certainly have related to marriage. The entire process would have been highly ritualized, and all the players — from the shaman to the parents to the rest of the tribe — would have known what their roles were and performed them with a great deal of exactitude — or suffered the consequences — which would themselves have been highly ritualized.
The interesting thing is how ritualized Internet communication is also. (I’m sure someone has written about this, but what the hell.) Consider that some behaviors simply cannot happen if you do not belong to a certain tribe, such as Facebook of LinkedIn or even CHE online. In some communities, if you want to communicate, you must extend a formal invitation to be friends. In others, you must first be invited by a friend who has already proved some sort of trustworthiness. Even “ordinary” communication, such as email and the reading of web pages must (of necessity) follow protocols that involve things like handshaking and the exchange of cookies. And of course there certain linguistic markers (OMG, FWIW, TTYL) you can deploy to indicate the extent to which you belong to the larger inter-tribe.
So maybe things haven’t changed so much since the days when we Photoshopped the walls of Lascaux? Except somehow I imagine Scott is not extending an invitation to marry you.
mikegrubb - May 24, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Of course, in addition to the option of benevolent communication concerning marriage would have been belligerent threat-making. Scott’s “invitation” may be more akin to a threat: “Join my network or I’ll continue to harass you until you submit!”
Jonathon Owen - May 24, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Oh, Professor Pullum, can you really blame all of the random internet folks for wanting to be your friends when you write so wonderfully? That preantepenultimate paragraph was pure gold.
dank48 - May 24, 2012 at 3:20 pm
That’s antisocial media for you.
11182967 - May 24, 2012 at 4:28 pm
What? You expect to use the resources of the Web and get off Scott-free?
pennyu - May 25, 2012 at 8:09 pm
Loved this piece. Why am I not allowed to “Like” it?