The real problem, as I see it, is that drag and drop interfaces move you
away from the need to know what you are doing. A long time ago, the first
MVS install that I did on my own, took me a few months to do it. I was
doing it under VM/XA and I did a few complete back to square one at the
time, as I was not pressed for time. At the time I had about two years of
MVS experience. I did read a lot of MVS and JES2 reading, you know,
installation guides, references, customization and such. When I finnaly
was satisfied with the system I knew a lot more than when I started.
The point that I am trying to make is that you may be able to do a z/OS
install using zosmf knowing next to nothing of z/OS, but with that
knowledge you will not be able to debug any kind of problem that you will
get in your way.
So, I suppose that the next step will be some kind of IA doing the install
and problem solving.
That makes me glad that I am not so far away from retirement.
Jack
On Wed, May 24, 2023, 21:21 Seymour J Metz <sme...@gmu.edu> wrote:
I enjoy learning new things, but I'd rather not replace good tools with
bad just because the bad tools are in fashion.
________________________________________
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf
of Harris Randy - Nashville <james.harr...@hcahealthcare.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2023 4:17 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: zOSMF
I had a choice 30 years ago to go into the pc, server, network side of IT
or go the mainframe direction.
I chose the mainframe because I liked it better.
I'm not a GUI fan.
It's not Windows.
I do have grey hair.
I do understand the need to atract younger people to the mainframe.
What I don't understand is why IBM would take away a working method
(SERVERPAC) and force
those of us with grey to learn something new when we well know how to use
what we already have in place.
And, a lot of us looking at retirement not toooo far away.
Randy Harris
P 615-344-3244
C 662-401-8552
james.harr...@hcahealthcare.com
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf
Of Phil Smith III
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2023 1:58 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: {EXTERNAL} Re: Re: zOSMF
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Beverly Caldwell wrote:
If zosmf is the answer what the hell was the question?
I’m going to take that as a straight question. I assume the question was,
“How do we make z/OS easier to install and maintain for folks who don’t
have any grey hair yet?”
This is essentially the same question that led to GUIs in general. The
problem is that it’s not trivial to answer—putting some lipstick on the
pig
doesn’t always do it: sometimes you need to restructure the pig.
<possibly insert “waste of time and it annoys the pig” joke>
I’m reminded of the Windows version of the Relay/Gold terminal emulator,
which was acquired by VM Systems Group when I was there. Under certain
SDLC
error conditions, it would drop out of the Windows UI into a DOS error
dialog. Which was not really recoverable, since it needed someone to
press
a key. At one point a customer was considering buying a power strip that
plugged into a phone line and could be called to cause it to power cycle,
as they had an automated process that would be stopped when this error
occurred. Talk about a Rube Goldberg solution! I’m sure the real fix was
a
single line of code somewhere, but finding that was non-trivial, of
course.
Especially since Relay/Gold was written in x86 assembler, a non-standard
variant from a dead company. So there were no diagnostic tools to speak
of.
And as a tiny vendor, we didn’t have the hardware to even simulate the
error…Good times. /s
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