On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:24:14 -0500, "Charles Hottel"
<chottel@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>"Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>news:62osr8F2492foU1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>
>> "SkippyPB" <swiegand@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> news:jfods3h3evo9r5br875lu9iqv0547e7g6i@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:21:13 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
>>> <dashwood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>"SkippyPB" <swiegand@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>>news:4f7bs35q4kcbp71vbd88irhimoun85qksb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>> On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:36:44 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
>>>>> <dashwood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>"tim" <TimJ@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>>>>news:13s728si8g08id9@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>>>> On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:46:19 +1300, Pete Dashwood wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/23/AR2008022300693_pf.html
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> What I'd like to know is exactly HOW you can establish yourself
as a
>>>>>>>> Geek,
>>>>>>>> so you can claim this defence. If writing a file system for Linux
is
>>>>>>>> all
>>>>>>>> it
>>>>>>>> takes (a weekend's work for a COBOL programmer...), then there
are a
>>>>>>>> lot
>>>>>>>> more Geeks around than many people may suppose.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Did he do it? (Jo Brand, referring to O. J. Simpson: "Course he
did
>>>>>>>> it;
>>>>>>>> he's a bloke...")
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Pete.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You must be pretty good if you can write 15,000 lines of
>>>>>>> multi-processing kernel code in a weekend.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Well, leaving aside the fact that I AM pretty good :-), it was said
>>>>>>with
>>>>>>tongue-in-cheek...:-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>As a matter of record, I once wrote a complete access method for a
>>>>>>mainframe
>>>>>>in a Bank, over a weekend. Another dedicated guy and myself worked
on
>>>>>>implementing it into about 300 programs over the same weekend. It
>>>>>>enabled
>>>>>>direct access based on Account numbers and had its own ha****ng
>>>>>>algorithm
>>>>>>based around the structure of account numbers in that particular
Bank.
>>>>>>It
>>>>>>was a complete callable subsystem that implemented all the functions
of
>>>>>>data
>>>>>>maintenance using VSAM RRDS. On Monday, everythng was working when
the
>>>>>>staff
>>>>>>showed up. We had a total of 9 hours sleep each and were given the
rest
>>>>>>of
>>>>>>the week off... :-) It was a long time ago; I wouldn't/couldn't do
it
>>>>>>now
>>>>>>:-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> So you're the guy that did that!! First job I had out of college
was
>>>>> working in an all IBM Assembler shop. They had about 20 different
>>>>> applications consisting of around 300 programs or so. One of the
>>>>> first changes they wanted was to convert their file access system
from
>>>>> DA to ISAM (which was the soup de jour of the day). The reason was
>>>>> noone, and I mean noone myslef included, could figure out how the
damn
>>>>> thing worked! It did work but neither I, the resident Assembler
>>>>> programmer or the account's IBM system engineer (back in the days
when
>>>>> these guys could write code with the best of them) could figure out
>>>>> how it worked. The person that wrote it and moved on to another job
>>>>> in another state and wasn't available for questions. This wasn't a
>>>>> bank, but I'm going to blame you for my many nights of writing code
to
>>>>> change the file access. :)
>>>>
>>>>Not guilty. Mine was a "black box". I have to ask, though, if it
worked,
>>>>and everyone agreed it worked, why change it?
>>>>
>>>>Pete.
>>>
>>> They were changing all of their applications from IBM Assembler to
>>> Cobol and the access system couldn't be rewritten in Cobol. There was
>>> no suggestion of making it a subroutine, which could have been done.
>>> And, as I recall, it had a limitation of only being able to work with
>>> 2311/2314 disk. Another upgrade was going to be installing 3380 (I
>>> think that's what they were) drives. So while it wasn't broke, it was
>>> not ****table or upgradable.
>>
>> Hmmmm... if the Assembler used standard housekeeping for IO it
shouldn't
>> have mattered what device it was on. I suspect they just wanted rid...
:-)
>>
>> A callable subroutine would have been better, I would've thought.
>>
>> Thaks for posting the response, Steve.
>>
>> At least we know the reasoning, whether it was right ot not... :-)
>>
>> Pete.
>> --
>> "I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."
>>
>
>A lot of direct access programming (BDAM) was device dependent and based
on
>numbers of cylinder, heads and tracks. There were some macros and
techniques
>that could be used to make it device independent but they were not always
>used.
>
That's right. And it hurts my head to try and think back to a system
I worked on in 1977, but as I seem to recall none of the standard
assembler macroes (DTFSD) were used as well as GET and PUT. Everything
was coded in the routines using supervisor calls and such.
Regards,
////
(o o)
-oOO--(_)--OOo-
"Marry me and I'll never look at another horse!."
-- Groucho Marx
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Steve
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