Exactly. No other system cares about the contents of the file.
On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 3:04 PM Bob Bridges <robhbrid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Oh, I was going to mention that surely allocating datasets, either in batch
> or TSO, has got to seem like one of the dumbest and most incomprehensible
> things we do on the mainframe, to a foreigner.
>
> ---
> Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313
>
> /* Just as the people who were alive when the telephone was invented had no
> way of knowing that the new device would someday make it possible for
> virtually every person on Earth, regardless of physical location, to be
> interrupted at dinner, so are we fundamentally ignorant of the ways in which
> the computer will ultimately change our lives. We cannot see the future; we
> do not know what lies around the next bend on the Information Superhighway;
> we cannot predict where, ultimately, the Computer Revolution will take us.
> All we know for certain is that, when we finally get there, we won’t have
> enough RAM. –from “Dave Barry in Cyberspace” */
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: robhbrid...@gmail.com <robhbrid...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, February 24, 2023 16:01
>
> In the semi-famous Logica hack in Sweden - I did some research into the
> details, some years ago - the intruders seemed competent to write their own
> binary code and run it in OMVS. But they bogged down when they had to
> link-edit something; they had a number of failures because of a laughably bad
> JOB card, and eventually gave up. In Unix they were perfectly comfortable,
> but JCL conquered them.
>
> I was tempted to sneer at the time ("can't even be bothered to read an error
> message!"), but I've been learning mainframe for 30 years now. Wait, 40
> years? My gosh, 50, almost! I gotta learn to subtract faster than that.
> Anyway, I've forgotten more than they're likely ever to learn, as the saying
> goes (and I'm by no means expert), so it's probably well to keep in mind that
> it wasn't obvious to me at first, either.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
> Farley, Peter
> Sent: Friday, February 24, 2023 12:23
>
> ....I have been using the IBM Zxplore website on my own time for over a year
> now for enhanced learning of some of the "new" technologies available on our
> mainframe systems, and I have been consistently surprised to observe the
> actual difficulties that genuine newcomers to mainframe systems have with
> many fundamental concepts that we take for granted. The "almost tree-like
> (but not really)" structure of mainframe datasets and the use (and mis-use)
> of JCL seem to be the most frequent cause of misunderstanding and errors,
> along with learning to read and understand the messages generated from a
> batch job or utility execution.
>
> It isn't the client-side tool interface (VSCode vs TSO/ISPF) that gives most
> of the newcomers fits, they seem to pick that up without too many problems.
> It's the fundamental system operational differences that make it harder for
> them to grasp, at least at first.
>
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--
Mike A Schwab, Springfield IL USA
Where do Forest Rangers go to get away from it all?
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