What are you thinking at the moment?

[Atif Alam]

Ok as I type this, this thread I started has 39687 replies on another forum (that is 2835 pages). So I'm just seeing what its like here. People just talk a load of crap in it.

Well I'm heading out now so I hope it will be a good evening! Anyone else up to anything?

[zprogrammer]

I was just thinking "When will I be getting my next promotion "

[Atif Alam]

I'm thinking that - will mainframe give me enough opprotunities in future, for my livlihood?

[Kapil Sharma]

I'll again be late in leaving from office.

[Rajesh Reddy]

What is better current or prvious logo of google??

[Anuj Dhawan]

What topics are good for blog. And how to get more writers to write on them.

[Manju Mainframe]

How do you get time for creating a website apart from your daily job??

[Nitin Jain]

Hi,

I am thinking that how a mainframe programmer can also make some extra money like the web developers?

[Anuj Dhawan]

That's a tough question to answer. I doubt if you can use skills apart from giving training...

[Technocrat]

This is the problem with mainframe career. You are not usually paid enough and then there is not much to earn extra...

[mickeydusaor]

is Friday ever going to get here ......................

[Sanket Guglani]

Too many changes in IT. Will Internet-of-Things take all over us?

[Soumya Laxmi]

What is another skill add-on along with the mainframes, which can help to make my resume more strong!

[Anuj Dhawan]

That's another tough one as I think it can not have a single answer which can be applicable across the globe. A lot depends on your geographical location and the kind of market you are in. For India, IT itself is no more a lucrative career option. Having started with that negative statement, if you want to stick to mainframes then you can choose to have a career in storage admin, system programming and or CICS admin. These position respects your experience and seek for the knowledge form application world too (assuming you are application programmer as of now). If you don't want to stick to mainframe in longer run - I find a move to Capacity Management or Cloud Computing is comparatively easy with.

OTOH, if you like project management, stick to single company and grow there. Unfortunately, I've not observed a good demand of Project Managers in Mainframes since last couple of years. Some eCommerce and RM companies don't ask for your back ground as long as you've the PM experience but that' a different ballgame altogether. It might depend on your caliber but picking it up is not that tough, I believe.

[Manju Mainframe]

How can we practice more of mainframes, like any windows's language?

[nicc]

How can we practice more of mainframes, like any windows's language?

Not at all sure what the second half of this means!

To get experience with an ISPF-like editor you can download SPFLite - free but contributions are welcome. It covers most of the editing commands with a lot more of its own
To get SQL experience you can download SQLite - free. It does not have all the bells and whistles of DB2. If you want something more like that then possible MySQL will help.
To learn Rexx you can download one of the implementations for free - but remember that the I/O model for PCs is completely different from that of the mainframe.
For practice with COBOL you can download GnuCobol.
For JCL there is no equivalent.
For utilities there are no real equivalents (that I know of - although I have written IEFBR14 and I am trying to reproduce IEBGENER in an attempt to learn C)

[enrico-sorichetti]

that the ratio mundane/technical posts is too high!

[Sachin Kumar]

I am thinking if here is someone who can help me in installing the Hercules on my computer!?

[enrico-sorichetti]

[font=Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I am thinking if here is someone who can help me in installing the Hercules on my computer![/font]

Do we have some free Mainframe simulator somewhere?

[Kishor Sonawane]

What is the best career which gives the best money?