My sermon today concerns the deeper meaning of the cult of Ib'm and the future of its most holy computer, the iSeries.
By using the word "cult" I of course don't mean some fringe religion with only a few adherent, although we are slowly becoming that (but I digress). I mean it in the way of the ancients when they worshiped temporal objects that helped them survive and/or gave their lives meaning. For example, everyone knows that among the ancient Egyptians there was a cult of cat worship. It got its start, not top-down with prophets, visions, and visitations from the cat god, but bottom-up because it was the cats that kept the rodents in their grain stores under control.
In a recent Maxed Out blog post Chris Maxcer wrote, among other interesting things, that my blog is "not trying to disparage any religion". Of course he's right. There is no intended disparagement of any religions. If there are any computer geeks out there who are also adherents to the Abrahamic religions, please do not be offended by my conflation of the language of said religions with this little cult of ours. Outside of work many of us have pledged our souls to a deity (or pantheon of deities) of our choice, but at work our hearts belong to the lord Ib'm and its most holy computer, the iSeries; for not only does it help us survive but it gives our lives meaning.
Most of the readers of this blog are well versed in the worship our lord Ib'm and its most holy computer, but computer geeks everywhere generally are priests in the temples of other idols at the same time. Unlike its behavior in the distant past, Ib'm will no longer get wrathful and send down plagues upon your systems and withhold service when one worships idols. In fact, the minions of lord Ib'm should probably, if they're on the ball, redouble their efforts to get people away from those false religions.
It's nice when all of the worlds religions can play nice together and be worshiped at once, but life isn't always like that. In an earlier time and much larger parish than my current one, we had several of the most holy AS/400s. We even had a System/36 -and- there was some worship of the Sun god, the ancient pagan rites of the Unix daemons, and the goddess Sybase. I personally had nothing against the worship of these pagan deities in my parish. After all, the nature worship that is Unix is almost as old as the F.S. Project itself and both grew out of that ancient tradition of geekdom's distance past where the command line interface (CLI) held supreme.
Eventually some new PHB's came on board and without warning there was an inundation of adherents to the twin gods Hewlett and Packard, and their object of worship, the HPUX O/S. Along with HPUX came the twin Mephistopheles of Unix faith everywhere; I am of course speaking of the foul beasts Oracle and NT. The houses of worship for these deities did not hold the CLI in high regard. Theirs was a world of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that mesmerized and held the bean counters in a trance such that they couldn't resist these temptations.
The most high and benevolent Ib'm and his many saints and angels were powerless to stem the tide of GUI worship amongst my flock. The temples to both the Sun god and the Sybase goddess were destroyed. The small System/36 cult was suppressed and the iSeries became a minority cult among this new tide. Attendance at my parish shrank, until finally there was no parish anymore. I too was tempted to abandon my faith, but it would have meant becoming a novice again after so many years as a high priest, so I chose to remain an iSeries adherent, but that also meant moving on.
As our lord Ib'm has taught us time and again, change happens, and we've all had to get used to that. I can't say that it's been easy watching this transition take place in our community. I attend the ecumenical conventions and I'm struck by how few young people are there. It appears that we are all aging out and that gives me pause. In addition the holy of hollies itself is slowly being inundated with more and more aspects of the pagan Unix cults. So much so that one day we may find that our beloved iSeries has become a pSeries.
Our lord Ib'm makes the light of the truth of the most holy iSeries, but we are its keepers. We have it in our hands to rise up and perpetuate this calling that gives our lives meaning. We cannot wait for Ib'm to come down from on high and preach to the masses the benefits of our faith. That's not going to happen, so we have to do it ourselves. In the same Maxed Out post Chris also wrote that Bishops Paris and Gantner were out teaching RPG to some VB acolytes and they most certainly have garnered more than a few converts. (You can read their blog post on the subject here: Good News in i Land.) Our counterparts in Japan have taken up the reins of proselytizing the iSeries to the unwashed masses and doing very well from what I've read. If we all do the same there is so much we could potentially accomplish not only for our benefit, but for future generations.
Amen.
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Friday, October 01, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
One of Many Forks in the Journey
I wanted today to write an entry in this blog to convey a little part of my history. It often amazes me the paths we all take in our journeys and there were many forks in mine. The reasons I took some had to do with actual contemplation of the possible outcomes and others were the paths of least resistance. This one fork I want to tell you about today was the first step towards my current career.
Today I'm a self identified computer geek, but growing up my persona wasn't so firmly set. I didn't know it at the time, but my habits and delights did follow a pattern known to others by a rather dismissive name. I had a proclivity for math and science. I loved reading and watching anything science fiction, fantasy, Lord of the Rings. I was profoundly uncomfortable around people I didn't know, especially women. -AND- I played D&D. It all but screamed NERD.
Years ago I saw a BBC mini-series on PBS dramatizing the life of Charles Darwin. It went from his early college years through the aftermath of the publication of his ground-breaking book. I don't know if this is true or not, but in the first part he's depicted as being pretty aimless and not knowing what he wants to do with his life. I'm not trying to compare myself to his greatness, but at the time I felt the same way about my life.
My father of course wanted me to join the family business and be a salesman. To spend my days calling florists in the region, trying to compel them to buy our flowers and supplies. -AND- I of course wanted to do anything but that. Firstly, I'm the oldest among my siblings, which meant that I was the practice child. I had issues with my dad at the time and we didn't get along that well. Second, I'm a nerd, who could barely speak to people and I would have to cold-call florists all day? Please. Finally, florists have to get up before their customers and wholesale florists have to get up before the florists, which of course means that I would spend my entire working life rising before 4:00 am every day, including Sundays. Those of you who know me are probably smiling at the thought of me getting up that early on a daily basis. I mean I have enough trouble getting to work by 9:00 am.
Being rudderless I wasn't sure what to major in when I contemplated college. As it happened, I was a big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright and since it was math/science/engineering related I started out studying architecture at a small college in Rhode Island. I did excel at my technical course requirements, but something for me was lacking in architecture. I was to Frank Lloyd Wright what Salieri was to Mozart in the movie “Amadeus”. I loved architecture, but when it came right down to brass tacks I lacked the necessary talent.
Two years in I decided to leave there with an associates degree and enroll in Rutgers to study civil engineering. However by the middle of the semester I knew that major was a mistake. I may have lacked the talent for architecture, but civil engineering was the total opposite. My first course in this discipline was on water: reservoirs, aquifers, aqueducts, dams, water and sewage treatment, etc. The math was both turgid & difficult and with all due respect to Civil Engineers everywhere, the subject matter bored me to death.
There was however this one little introductory course that all of us TI-30 calculator types at Rutgers had to take: Intro to Computers for Engineers. They taught us how to use FORTRAN and we had to do our homework an IBM 370 mainframe. Our professor spent a couple of weeks acclimating us to the computer system and JCL using a pre-written “Hello World” program that we had to punch onto cards and run through the card reader. On the next assignment we had to write a new program all by ourselves and I have to admit that I was totally lost.
Remember now that this was 1978. The Apple II computer had only been on the market for a year and a half and no one in my circle of friends had even seen one. (Years later I would learn that most of the computer greats, while their contemporaries were out riding bicycles or playing ball, spent their formative years trolling computer centers. But for me, aside from playing pong on my home TV, I'd never had any previous experience with computers.)
In desperation I went to the professor's office asking for help. He tried to get me to see what I needed to do without actually writing the program for me. After much confusion on my part he finally revealed the missing pieces and I don't know what changed, but it just clicked inside my head. That moment changed my life and long story short I ended up acing the course, changing my major to computer science, and have spent my working life writing computer code.
At the end of that mini-series on Darwin's life, he's an old man and the actor narrates that he was always thankful he took the job on the HMS Beagle because it gave him something to do with his life. At the time I thought it was an odd thing to say considering how his life's work changed the world, but today I understand what he actually meant. Even if he hadn't changed the world he still would have been thankful for the direction it gave his life and that's how I feel too. I'm thankful that I was able to take that introductory computer course because it really did give me something worthwhile to do with my life.
Today I'm a self identified computer geek, but growing up my persona wasn't so firmly set. I didn't know it at the time, but my habits and delights did follow a pattern known to others by a rather dismissive name. I had a proclivity for math and science. I loved reading and watching anything science fiction, fantasy, Lord of the Rings. I was profoundly uncomfortable around people I didn't know, especially women. -AND- I played D&D. It all but screamed NERD.
Years ago I saw a BBC mini-series on PBS dramatizing the life of Charles Darwin. It went from his early college years through the aftermath of the publication of his ground-breaking book. I don't know if this is true or not, but in the first part he's depicted as being pretty aimless and not knowing what he wants to do with his life. I'm not trying to compare myself to his greatness, but at the time I felt the same way about my life.
My father of course wanted me to join the family business and be a salesman. To spend my days calling florists in the region, trying to compel them to buy our flowers and supplies. -AND- I of course wanted to do anything but that. Firstly, I'm the oldest among my siblings, which meant that I was the practice child. I had issues with my dad at the time and we didn't get along that well. Second, I'm a nerd, who could barely speak to people and I would have to cold-call florists all day? Please. Finally, florists have to get up before their customers and wholesale florists have to get up before the florists, which of course means that I would spend my entire working life rising before 4:00 am every day, including Sundays. Those of you who know me are probably smiling at the thought of me getting up that early on a daily basis. I mean I have enough trouble getting to work by 9:00 am.
Being rudderless I wasn't sure what to major in when I contemplated college. As it happened, I was a big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright and since it was math/science/engineering related I started out studying architecture at a small college in Rhode Island. I did excel at my technical course requirements, but something for me was lacking in architecture. I was to Frank Lloyd Wright what Salieri was to Mozart in the movie “Amadeus”. I loved architecture, but when it came right down to brass tacks I lacked the necessary talent.
Two years in I decided to leave there with an associates degree and enroll in Rutgers to study civil engineering. However by the middle of the semester I knew that major was a mistake. I may have lacked the talent for architecture, but civil engineering was the total opposite. My first course in this discipline was on water: reservoirs, aquifers, aqueducts, dams, water and sewage treatment, etc. The math was both turgid & difficult and with all due respect to Civil Engineers everywhere, the subject matter bored me to death.
There was however this one little introductory course that all of us TI-30 calculator types at Rutgers had to take: Intro to Computers for Engineers. They taught us how to use FORTRAN and we had to do our homework an IBM 370 mainframe. Our professor spent a couple of weeks acclimating us to the computer system and JCL using a pre-written “Hello World” program that we had to punch onto cards and run through the card reader. On the next assignment we had to write a new program all by ourselves and I have to admit that I was totally lost.
Remember now that this was 1978. The Apple II computer had only been on the market for a year and a half and no one in my circle of friends had even seen one. (Years later I would learn that most of the computer greats, while their contemporaries were out riding bicycles or playing ball, spent their formative years trolling computer centers. But for me, aside from playing pong on my home TV, I'd never had any previous experience with computers.)
In desperation I went to the professor's office asking for help. He tried to get me to see what I needed to do without actually writing the program for me. After much confusion on my part he finally revealed the missing pieces and I don't know what changed, but it just clicked inside my head. That moment changed my life and long story short I ended up acing the course, changing my major to computer science, and have spent my working life writing computer code.
At the end of that mini-series on Darwin's life, he's an old man and the actor narrates that he was always thankful he took the job on the HMS Beagle because it gave him something to do with his life. At the time I thought it was an odd thing to say considering how his life's work changed the world, but today I understand what he actually meant. Even if he hadn't changed the world he still would have been thankful for the direction it gave his life and that's how I feel too. I'm thankful that I was able to take that introductory computer course because it really did give me something worthwhile to do with my life.
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