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

[Jake Hamby (Solid State Jake)]

On Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 10:43:09 AM UTC-8, Dan Cross wrote:
> In article <kqq5kd... at mid.individual.net>,
> bill <bill.gu... at gmail.com> wrote: 
> >On 11/5/2023 1:18 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> >> [snip]
> >> But that does mean that it would make sense for colleges 
> >> to spew out hundreds or thousands of people with solid 
> >> PL/I skills. 
> > 
> >No one says hundreds of thousands. But if 1% of CS and CIS 
> >students were offered a course in COBOL or Fortran or PL/I 
> >it would provide a pool of about 2000 candidates a year. A 
> >little better than 0.
> I wonder why you're so focused on confronting this in the 
> university system? What is so different about a single semester 
> course and a short-term job with OJT and an option to hire full 
> time at the end for new graduates? 
> 
> If these organizations are so eager to hire programmers with 
> COBOL and Fortran experience, why don't they take charge of the 
> situation and provide the experience themselves? 
> 
> - Dan C.

IBM has a very successful program for self-taught instruction for university students, originally called "Master the Mainframe", which they've opened up to the general public under the name "IBM Z Xplore". It's quite fun. I highly recommend it. The challenges walk you through how to use VS Code to submit COBOL, JCL, and HLASM, how to use ISPF on a 3270 terminal, how to use the UNIX shell via ssh, how to use their modern Python integration, and one challenge uses the LinuxONE community cloud account and walks you through setting up Apache there to serve some files.

IBM also has a variety of badges and certificates you can get by taking courses in their catalog on COBOL, LinuxONE, REXX, z/OS system administration, and more. Many of those courses give you Web remote access to a time-limited Windows VM on an intranet that connects to their student account they create for you automatically when you sign up for the course, with a pre-configured Windows 3270 emulator. The Z Xplore courses also give you a student account but show you how to connect from your own PC/Linux/Mac. I'm still working through the Z Xplore courses.