Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap • Hacker News Board

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#41

Post by js8 » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

As a mainframer:

IBM should make the z/OS available for free experimentation! That's the biggest obstacle and reason why people do not know it. Even the long dead Solaris has more hackers on it than z/OS.

Also, millenials will also want job security and pensions, eventually. Just wait when they have kids.

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#42

Post by dfox » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

natvert wrote: post #28

Ok, maybe this is a silly question, but I am a millennial.... Question: what is a mainframe and why would I want one? In my mind I think of it as a big, but inelastic, compute resource. If that's true, why wouldn't I want to use something horizontally scalable instead?

You want mainframe in similar situations as when you need EC2 ridiculously large instances. That is when you have workload that absolutely most run as a whole on one big single machine. Typically that means OLTP database which cannot work with some relaxed consistency model (payment settlement is often cited example of such thing).

And for the elasticity part, mainframes are where the whole virtualization and hypervisors started. Although, or maybe because, purchasing and operating an mainframe is significant investment in terms of both capex and opex (it is somewhat telling that IBM's specification sheets for mainframes read somewhat like flyers for new cars, about half of the thing is about available financing methods :)).

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#43

Post by sithadmin » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #41

As a mainframer: IBM should make the z/OS available for free experimentation! That's the biggest obstacle and reason why people do not know it. Even the long dead Solaris has more hackers on it than z/OS. Also, millenials will also want job security and pensions, eventually. Just wait when they have kids.

Even if Z/OS was available for free, wouldn't hardware be a huge problem? IBM zSeries are pretty unique under the hood.

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#44

Post by zubairq » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

pierotofy wrote: post #32

What gap, just pay more for the position.

best comment of them all, I agree, there is no skills shortage of mainframe programmers!

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#45

Post by fortylove » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

Fidelity Investments has a software engineer training program for fresh college graduates that lasts a few months and is supposed to prepare them to work at Fidelity. The training program is split into different tracks, one of which is a mainframe track [1].

[1] https://www.cs.uri.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/...

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#46

Post by js8 » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

sithadmin wrote: post #43

js8 wrote: post #41

As a mainframer: IBM should make the z/OS available for free experimentation! That's the biggest obstacle and reason why people do not know it. Even the long dead Solaris has more hackers on it than z/OS. Also, millenials will also want job security and pensions, eventually. Just wait when they have kids.

Even if Z/OS was available for free, wouldn't hardware be a huge problem? IBM zSeries are pretty unique under the hood.

IBM has an emulator as part of zPDT, and there is also Hercules emulator for free. It's a problem for certain things (like sysplex programming or HMC), but mostly easy to deal with.

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#47

Post by segmondy » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

natvert wrote: post #28

Ok, maybe this is a silly question, but I am a millennial.... Question: what is a mainframe and why would I want one? In my mind I think of it as a big, but inelastic, compute resource. If that's true, why wouldn't I want to use something horizontally scalable instead?

We don't, we are happy with out distributed and networked computing. Most of us can't afford a mainframe, mainframe is owned by big corps, to play with one you have to go through a big corp. If you worked for a big corp, you still have to appease the priests or be one of them to play with one. It goes against the dream of "everyone should have a computer and be free to do with it as much as they wish". The biggest computing power that have been demonstrated in our history has been via distributed systems not mainframes.

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#48

Post by j1vms » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

natvert wrote: post #28

Ok, maybe this is a silly question, but I am a millennial.... Question: what is a mainframe and why would I want one? In my mind I think of it as a big, but inelastic, compute resource. If that's true, why wouldn't I want to use something horizontally scalable instead?

> what is a mainframe and why would I want one?

Very roughly speaking, a mainframe is to a CPU what a supercomputer is to a GPU.

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#49

Post by smolder » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

The way the article is describing millennials is from someone who has an outsiders view and a poor understanding. The things millennials do are not because millennials have wildly different values, they're because the world changed. Everyone in business learned giving pensions, training people and retaining people doesn't pay off. The post-ww2 bubble of prosperity has let out its air. That environment no longer exists. At this point you've got to have a good reason to commit to working in a dwindling market, for example being ordered to in the military.

The only thing mainframe shops have to learn from Facebook et al is how to do large scale services without mainframes and cobol etc. They've already got the "let's overstate our talent pool problems because we want cheaper workers" part figured out, it seems.

Re: Millennials and Mainframes: How to Bridge the Gap

#50

Post by syn0byte » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

natvert wrote: post #28

Ok, maybe this is a silly question, but I am a millennial.... Question: what is a mainframe and why would I want one? In my mind I think of it as a big, but inelastic, compute resource. If that's true, why wouldn't I want to use something horizontally scalable instead?

They DO horizontally scale, just not very cheaply. Reliability above all else is their advantage. There is an entire internet between you and a "5 9s" cloud provider that can screw you.

side note; I HATE the trend in the level of abstraction away from hardware. Seems about as short sighted as GP doctors abstracting away human anatomy. They mostly treat illnesses and proscribe medication; why should they need to know the names of bones in a human body? There are orthopedic specialists for that!