[Info-vax] Should VSI create a modern day VMS applications book ?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 8/20/2018 9:39 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 08/20/2018 07:57 AM, Neil Rieck wrote:
>> So to answer the question asked in the original post, yes: if VSI 
>> wants to keep OpenVMS alive then they need to commission or re-market 
>> some material showing how to write OpenVMS applications. If they do 
>> not want to spend money writing paper-based manuals, then how about a 
>> website. That is what I tried to do here over the past 20 years.
> 
> To what end?  The people who make up the IT world today are not
> the same as they were in our day.  I got where I am by reading
> a lot and trying a lot on my own.  Today's equivalent does no
> more than necessary to keep their job.  They have no ambition
> and no desire to get better.  Thus the reason for the tremendous
> success of the certification business.  Certs are all you need
> for success and they can be acquired with a weekend boot camp
> and a half hour exam for which the boot camp was targeted (note,
> I mean the exam was the target, not the actual functionality!)

There are a lot of different people out there.

But if we look at average, then I would tend to agree.

I have seen a trend starting maybe around 2008 where let us call
it problem solving endurance has decrease dramatically.

Using 10 minutes or 1 hour trying to solve a problem
is OK. Google search, check SO, watch a 5 minute
Youtube video, ask around on Twitter. Does it get
working then fine. If not move on to something else.

Using 8 hours or 40 hours researching and trying
out lots of things to get something working is not
an option. The patience to do that does not exist.
And god forbid the need to actually having to read
a full book.

That has a significant impact on both choice of
technologies and choice of design.

At first it does not matter. After all the purpose
of all computing is really to support laziness -
having the computer do the work instead of the
people.

But sometimes hard problems show up. And the hard work
skill does not show up by magic when needed. Just
like any other skill it need to be trained
over time.

Arne