[Info-vax] OpenVMS async I/O, fast vs. slow

[bill]

On 11/5/2023 12:37 PM, John Dallman wrote:
> In article <kqpsd9F6p36U1 at mid.individual.net>, bill.gunshannon at gmail.com
> (bill) wrote:
> 
>> I really wish trade schools would step up to the plate and start
>> teaching IT and in particular thing like COBOL, Fortran and PL/I.
>> They are not going away.
> 
> However, recruiting young people onto those courses, rather than ones in
> mobile app creation, might be quite hard. 

Not every student studying computers is a budding computer scientist.
Most schools with CS programs also have CIS programs and a  lot of
students go that route.

>                                            You'd also need relevant
> compilers, operating systems and hardware.

Just like VMS has a student program IBM and UNISYS, the two biggest
mainframers left, offer programs for people to familiarize with their
world.  There are also Open Source COBOL and Fortran systems available.
PL/i being the red headed step child. (As a side note, the recent 
edition of the CACM has an article that claims IBM intended PL/I to
take over the computing world from the likes of COBOL, Fortran and
ALGOL.  Funny considering that they kept it hidden in their corporate
bowels for so long.)

> 
> I'm not saying this is a bad idea, but if it was easy, it might well
> already be happening.

The problem goes back to marketing.  Academia has held it down for so
long that people don't know about it.  It will take a sell but right now 
it is hard to find the right person to sell it.  Maybe this whole loan
debt thing will finally provide the push it needs.

> 
> I learned the basics of Fortran and Cobol as an undergraduate in the
> early eighties, and have never had any desire to do more.

And I also started with COBOL and Fortran (but no college, that came
like documentation, at the very end.  I got my degree 4 years before
I retired.) and while I have done (and still do) a lot of other kinds
of programming, network, OS, embedded systems, RTOS, etc. I always found
the COBOL and Fortran to be the work I enjoy the most.

bill