Future in Web for a Mainframer?

Career Path for a IBM Mainframe professional in Internet Industry

[bakulesh]

Hi All,

I am an IBM Mainframe programmer with more than 10 years of programming experience in COBOL, CICS, VSAM etc and for fewer years in DB2, IMS etc. I am currently unemployed. I am planning on re-training myself in internet technologies. Ideally it will be best if I take a careerpath which builds on the skills I already have and at the same time increase my chances in a job in a "internet-only" based company. Any advice/info will be appreciated.

Thanks, -Bakulesh

[victor]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

If you can do CICS/COBOL, you can do CGI programming standing on your head.

If you know DB2 then Access, or Oracle or MySQL are not going to trouble you for more than five minutes.

If you have any comprehension about building reliable systems, then most web design teams will drive you mad for the first few days. After that you'll look like a genius for raising obvious issues like acceptance testing, fallback procedures, failsafe coding. etc etc.

[httpwebwitch]

There are a lot of big companies that would kneel and worship your IBM resume, and a lot of them are heavily into Java. If you're interested in getting into web tech, you might like to start with some Java, since it has applications on web servers and internet applications.

But if you're more bent on an "internet-only" company, then you ought to plunge elbow-deep into PHP and SQL, and get really chummy with HTML.

I hope you find something. good luck!

[bcolflesh]

With your past history, I suggest you go with WebSphere and JAVA.

[bcc1234]

1) Start thinking in terms of objects.
2) CPU time is indeed free :)

[garann]

Adding my agreement to what everyone else is saying, learn server-side Java (JSP and Servlets, EJB if you're really ambitious).

My last job was part of a project to convert a giant COBOL system to a web application using DB2 and WebSphere. They had a bunch of good Java coders and a bunch of good mainframe programmers, but few people who were really, really good at both. I'd think a situation like that would be an ideal starting point for someone with a mainframe background looking to break into web work.

You might also look into the Unified Modeling Language and the Struts framework from Apache/Jakarta. I understand those kinds of things are very useful on a big mainframe conversion project.

Good luck!

[g1smd]

If you want to play with PHP and MySQL, then get a free package called PHPdev. Google for it (11MB download).

It includes the Apache webserver, PHP, MySQL, PHPadmin, an FTP server, and example forum, an example database/PHP driven website, and works straight out of the box. Runs here on an old 350MHz laptop with Win98SE with no problems. Plenty of tutorial websites, and support forums to answer questions.

I got PHPdev version 4.2.3 and it needed one edit to an .INI file to get it fully working (details on theor support forum).