Here’s a sober talk about the reality of the mainframe today. This podcast discusses the mainframe’s place in the forefront of modern day computing technology and debunks some myths about the mainframe. It also talks about the variety of development environments it has to offer developers, not just the old green-screen approach.
Is a transcript to be found anywhere? 😐
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/dwi/cm-int072706.txt
Not necessarily because there is something wrong with the technology, but because they’re not attracting young people. Go look at the mainframe department in a big company and compare the average age to the Windows nd Unix departments.
While it’s true that folks coming out of school are typically not going into mainframe development, that isn’t always an indicator of platform stagnation.
First of all, it makes perfect sense that more folks are going to work on client-side user-facing systems and fewer on the server backend. There are simply a lot more client systems! Also, the client platforms tend to be more similar to what is taught in schools these days, making it an easier transition.
Secondly, though, “not young” doesn’t mean “dead” or “dying soon”. Really. 🙂
I’m a fairly typical mainframe programmer in the airline industry, and I’m 43 with roughly 18 years of experience. While it’s certainly true that I’m no longer young, there are many mainframers out there who graduted from college with mainframe skills in the mid-1980’s just like I did, and I’m probably not going to be retiring until age 65, which gives me 22 more years in the workforce.
That means I’m not going away soon. 🙂
Eventually, the specialized mainframe platforms will die, but I don’t think it will be due to old age or to a lack of prgorammers. IBM has been courting the open source community for some time, both in their marketing and tech-wise on their big iron, and even Unisys (which isn’t the quickest company on its feet anymore to put it mildly) supports things like C, Java, and web services on its Clearpath Dorado mainframe line.
I think the end will come because of a blurring of old platforms and newer languages and APIs, not due to a lack of knowledgeble personnel. Most mainframe tech isn’t all that hard to learn, anyway. But a mainframe that runs a POSIX interface and uses C, Java, and other common “distributed” tools won’t be seen as anything special or different anymore. It’ll be Just Another Big Server.