What does a mainframe programmer do?

[iamshady]

Specifically, not an answer like "programs mainframes".

 

[bandXtrb]

good question.. bump

 

[yakko]

He works for a living.

 

[joohang]

Takes care of the mainframe servers in the clean room while kicking on the dusty Windows 2000 and Exchange servers underneath his desk so that they crash more often.

 

[RichieZ]

My dad works on IBM DB2 (competitor to Oracle 9i), he does the query rewrites on SQL code, the code generated might be valid but be horribly inefficient.

This summer I will write scripts that will form a "toolbox" for testing their relational databases. However I'll probalby be working on the workstation/server version instead of the mainframe verson my dad works on.

Yea, I got the co-op hookup there this summer!

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Wish I knew. I have an uncle who is a mainframe programmer for EDS in Plano. Guy doesn't even know how to update a video card driver and needs a walk-though on installing an OS on his home computer. Two different worlds apparently. Boggles my mind that he doesn't know how to do that stuff, yet programs all day.