Help, I'm a dinosaur!

[R.Daugherty]

Help, I'm a dinosaur!

That's a point, Chris. In fact, I got a question in an interview recently about my use of IFS and quite frankly I've been in two Fortune 200's during the last seven years and it wasn't used for anything we did, so these guys interviewing me didn't find that useful because they said they were trying to FTP from it. I wrote an automated FTP scripting system a few years ago as part of a larger project to exchange data, but all the FTP'ing we did was through OS/400 libraries. That irritates me to no end that whatever I happened to have worked on is used to select me versus another person for an AS/400 job but I can imagine it's even worse for those that didn't happen to get package experience at large corporate shops as I did. Still, if very specific experience can be found I understand the hiring of that experience. As a result of this discussion I think I will read up on the IFS and see what capabilities it brings that hasn't been utilized in the standard RPG package environment of the past. rd

[Guest.Visitor]

Help, I'm a dinosaur!

One of the questions I always ask is: "What skills would you like to learn?" That immediately tells me what they don't know. Often I'll expand from there. But you shouldn't worry too much, most good employers realize that no candidate has all the skills that they need and they'll have to do some training. Just have a positive attitude in interviews and assure the interviewer that you are a quick learner and will catch up quickly. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "dave400" wrote in message news:6b1f7925.15@WebX.WawyahGHajS... > If you had to interview a new hire, what questions would you ask? I think those types of questions would definately help me on my way. > > I mostly tend to ask open questions like...so a dump of some of the things I would be asking. (From the context of the post I assume its more administration then programming ) > "How would you go about improving our system availability ? > > How would you work with our auditors to audit the environment. > > How do you keep up to date on the technology. > > What are the criteria you use to make a decision of when and how to put applications or sub-applications into different LPARS. > > How would you support one of our development teams who need SQL access from their application to an OS/400 application ? > > What strategy would you take to get up to speed with any new enhancements that may benefit our organisation ? > > How do you see service programs and bind modules affecting the SDLC ? Describe how you would manage a change to a module that resides in a service program, including testing. > > What alternatives could you present to web enable an existing application.

[bharder@nlrha.ab.ca]

Help, I'm a dinosaur!

QShell gets my vote as the most amazing recent addition. Before QShell came along it seemed like all the Unix support on the system was through low level API libraries and such. Most of that I couldn't make use of, so it was irrelevant to me. Now I admit that the IFS was also a crucial building block for the Unix/Linux/AIX support trend. In fact, there must have been a whole series of background items put in place to allow this compatibility. Yet it was the appearance of QShell that made it all real to me. That's when I knew that IBM was really serious about making the system much more open and compatible with other operating systems.

[dmjae2004@yahoo.com]

Help, I'm a dinosaur!

QShell gets my vote as the most amazing recent addition. Qshell has been available since V4R2 (initally as a PRPQ) which dates back to 1997/1998.

[Papi55]

Help, I'm a dinosaur!

Thanks again for all the great replies. Victoria, that is a very insightful article. Dave, excellent questions! I did know about the IFS, but Joe is right. I never used it. I did a lot of work with shared folders, but I read a bit on IFS and it seemed an interesting idea that I never had the opportunity to explore. You have all given me a lot of material to do research on, I feel a bit overwhelmed with it all. On the other hand, my curiosity and "feelings" for the good-old AS/400 (excuse me, iSeries) have kind of re-kindled. People keep telling me how the AS/400 is not going anywhere and how it isn't worth the trouble to renew training and such. What do you guys/gals think? What is the career-life expectancy of an AS/400 System Administrator?

[Papi55]

Help, I'm a dinosaur!

I haven't worked on an AS/400 in years and now may have to catch up quickly. I don't think I'll have problems with the admin part, but a question that I can't find an answer to is "what is the difference between an AS/400 and an iSeries?" Help anyone! Point me in the right direction and I'll take it from there. Thanks.

[dacust]

Help, I'm a dinosaur!

I figure that when I retire in 15 years or so, I'll still be working on AS/400's, uh iSeries, uh X7bStreak, uh.... -dan