Hiring/educating PL/I Devs

[johann woeckinger]

Hi folks,

I'm aware that this is a more technical newsgroup, but i know that there are pretty experienced ppl. involved and i hope for some wisdom:

We might want to hire some devs for PL/I as several "core" ppl. will retire in near future. As PL/I is not teached / used widely anymore we'll have to educate ppl ourselves (we're used to that).
My personal experience tells me, that ppl. that have only done java / javascript / c# / oop-only .. often fail on getting into PL/I, but ppl. who come from e.g. C (which is also pretty rare these days) do much smoother. So i consider putting "some experience in C" on the offer.
What are your experiences? How would you "attract" the right ppl.? What should we look for?

Many thanks in advance,
br johann

PS: we're in early planning and i assume it will be a mainly local, austrian hiring campaing, so i won't be able to take applications yet.

[Robert Prins]

On 2021-01-21 09:23, johann woeckinger wrote:> I'm aware that this is a more

technical newsgroup, but i know that there are
> pretty experienced ppl. involved and i hope for some wisdom:
>
> We might want to hire some devs for PL/I as several "core" ppl. will retire
> in near future. As PL/I is not teached / used widely anymore we'll have to
> educate ppl ourselves (we're used to that). My personal experience tells me,
> that ppl. that have only done java / javascript / c# / oop-only .. often fail
> on getting into PL/I, but ppl. who come from e.g. C (which is also pretty
> rare these days) do much smoother. So i consider putting "some experience in
> C" on the offer. What are your experiences? How would you "attract" the right
> ppl.? What should we look for?

REXX?

Pascal/Delphi?

Offer remote working, I just had a call for a possible job in Liege, 3+ hour by
train from Oostende (and even more by car). Remote? Now probably yes, but once
Covid-19 is gone, "maybe one or two days per week".

Compare this to my first stint in Dublin (while living in the UK), in 2001. They
had someone working from down-under. Used to work in Dublin, went back, and they
said "let's give it a try". Turned out to ve very useful to (also) keep an eye
on the overnight batch!

Robert
--
Robert AH Prins
robert(a)prino(d)org
The hitchhiking grandfather - https://prino.neocities.org/indez.html
Some REXX code for use on z/OS - https://prino.neocities.org/zOS/zOS-Tools.html

[Robin Vowels]

.
Programmers should be able to self-learn PL/I.
There are many many good books on PL/I (including "The New PL/I" and
"Introduction to PL/I, Algorithms, and Structured Programming".)

[Peter Flass]

C or Pascal programmers should be able to learn PL/I pretty quickly, as
already mentioned. I can look around, I may have a copy a PL/I
self-education course (unless I’m thinking of something else, the mind
wanders...) Possibly you can connect with someone who has taught PL/I. You
might ask around on Linkedin or the IBM developer board - If interested I
can send you the link.

Depending on what you’re doing I might be interested in some remote work
until your people get online (very remote)

Congratulations on your excellent choice of language!

You also might want to ask on the PL/I LISTSERV (I’ll post the correct list
name later).

--
Pete

[johann woeckinger]

> Programmers should be able to self-learn PL/I.

very well said, robin!

[Markus Loew]

Hello Johann,
Is'nt there a way to get a PL/I programming job as a remote worker?

[johann woeckinger]

On Sunday, August 15, 2021 at 11:00:55 PM UTC+2, memos....@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello Johann,
> Is'nt there a way to get a PL/I programming job as a remote worker?

Hi,
sorry to say, but currently not.
If there is new opportunity / policy change i'll let you know, but currently no way,
br johann

ps @all: i really didn't want to generate any kind of false hope, that's why i included the ps-disclaimer in my original post. sorry anyway.