Several years ago, I was at a SHARE conference listening to my friend and co-worker John Franciscovich explain some useful things about CP (the control program) for z/VM. At one point in the presentation, he used the phrase - "Then we create the control blocks...". He paused, and said, "When I say we I really mean the CP code. It's not like we're little people running around inside the computer."
It struck me that a lot of z/VM developers talk that way, reflecting a degree of ownership of the design and code. Some of this comes from working on it and owning it for a length of time, as almost in a science fiction novel, the coder becomes the code.
While that may sound weird to others, it gives me a sense of confidence in the product and the people. Quality studies have talked about how quality changes when names are attached to work; cases where one signs one's name to a piece of work. It's old school craftsmanship. If you look close enough at z/VM code, you'll see names. Well, not really names, but programmer IDs. So in a sense, we do sign our code. My few lines of code are identified by "2B".
I don't believe this is just a current trend. If I look back historically at z/VM, I have trouble separating the product from the people, and the people from the product. And I think that is a good thing.
I cannot think of a single VMer that would disagree with your final statement. Well said.
ReplyDeleteNot quite an advent calendar but close!
ReplyDelete:-) I'm not sure if I'll be able to do one a day, but we'll see. Thanks for the feedback.
DeleteGreat story Bill. I might forget an old phone number before forgetting my programmer ID associated with code I wrote!
ReplyDelete2B... or not 2B?
ReplyDeleteCouldn't resist :-)
MR (formerly RM, originally K2)
:-)
DeleteActually, I always think about John running around inside the machine putting values in boxes. 8-)
ReplyDeleteI was not a programmer for VM. I was a planner and I owned several release of VM/SP. We got REXX into Release 3. Internally it was called REX, but when we added to the external system, legal said we could not use REX as someone else had that acronym. So we came up with REXX. I remember many of these "battles" and plans. I really enjoyed my time with VM and the VM community.
ReplyDeleteGary Vonderhaar