My loss of innocence was when, as a HS student, I had to explain a multiple linear regression program to a woman with an MA in Statistics. The degree changes the odds that you understand your major, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient. It's something to take into account, but there are plenty of excellent programmers without degrees.
________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of Bernd Oppolzer <bernd.oppol...@t-online.de> Sent: Monday, September 4, 2023 2:24 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Is the IBM Assembler List still alive FWIW: I have a computer science degree from the university of Stuttgart, Germany (from 1977 to 1985). We learned Pascal first, then different Assembler languages. During my studies, I got interested in compiler construction, and I am the maintainer of the New Stanford Pascal compiler today, look here: http://secure-web.cisco.com/1BkSHCYQxC88CAxeo_0zBvpsyBHaAW9hqf3FnhSG6Apwq6deuk_AjtZ_6COxg8XyVDTuIswWIRERJONH9qKgiqWW-tL2KjMu0xVC5bMC1PlV5Ne5eXXbqQJq-I1vQHeoRTmmfbxRslMCXZuAssMl9AiK28kUly9d8r85b4lJKwjBV8HtUlmG2K5pWla-8RaEuGxz5c_Kc8_Udjr-T15PXaHpFrQWJiWgxJThHhkqDs83L7rHgrZyrJLopliweEsR5dytex1fAA2qXecjXFRy8xRL3ZmMk_UD7cik0WiGmW7UTEWawM0n78aRWXjkps5-bF0cwKm26F6kBP3Zo7w4RLuwzg6KnntJ6uVF7P00dF0qaUoXLiFQNcmFs43geOoAl6jeppmhJADGThQNSSYYEwT9hdYM6RUZ_5E28qENT0jc/http%3A%2F%2Fbernd-oppolzer.de%2Fjob9.htm Later I learned Fortran, RPG, COBOL, PL/1, REXX of course ... During my career I met many very sharp people who didn't have a degree (only some sort of on-site education, starting as an insurance specialist, for example, then changing to the IT department), but they had the same (system) programming skills that I had. The degree is not what made me a systems programmer. But I would not accept someone as a systems programmer who cannot program in ASSEMBLER (on IBM mainframes) or in C (at Unix and Windows platforms). All others IMO are some sort of admins. Regarding "machine code": I also did classes for dump analysis, and one of my students said, Bernd is reading dumps of machine code like others read the newspaper :-) I don't want to do that; my Pascal compiler writes language specific dumps, where the variables and there contents are shown in Pascal syntax, but if there are no such tools, and nothing helps and the error must be solved, I read the hex dumps, of course. No matter if the system is MVS or VSE. Kind regards Bernd Am 04.09.2023 um 04:56 schrieb Bill Johnson: > Nothing more arrogant than saying someone isn’t a systems programmer unless > they have my abilities. And your education is meaningless, just ask Gabe > Goldberg or “machine language” Bernd. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
