goodInstalling and using a piece of IBM mainframe systems software requires knowing how to do things on IBM mainframes. This includes using the editor, which is different from anything you'll find on Windows or Unix, and getting batch jobs through the system. Neither is difficult, but neither is intuitive, either.
The guys on either side of me in class are Unix/Windows people with no knowledge of mainframe operating systems. Needless to say, they are completely lost when it comes to actually doing the lab work, though both are keeping up with the knowledge requirements. It's all the little things that anyone who's done mainframe work knows right off and they don't.
I wound up helping them get through the lab exercises this afternoon. This cost me an hour or so; left to my own devices, I'd have been out of there earlier than when I finally got loose. That, in turn, put the kibosh on my plans to drive up to Maine, just to say I'd been there. It'd have been too late by the time I was done.
