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IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

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Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#21

Post by IainIreland »

aparsons wrote: post #12

COBOL will always have a soft spot in my heart as the first programming language I learned. I did not use it much - 2 years max - but when reading COBOL it was really clear that there were some programmers who just saw code differently - in an abstract, artistic sense. It was the ultimate litmus test. COBOL is really easy to write spaghetti code with - perhaps even the default. But some of these programmers (not incl…

I worked on the IBM COBOL compiler in a past life. It's not LLVM based; the optimizer and code generator are derived from J9, the IBM JVM. I would be a bit surprised if they open-sourced it; OpenJ9 is open-sourced, but the COBOL compiler for Z is one of those rare compilers that is still being sold to paying customers.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#22

Post by greenshackle2 »

d_silin wrote: post #7
msgilligan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nobody here (besides maybe me) old enough to have anything to say.

Well, I worked with COBOL developer team in Canadian bank a few years ago. It is absolutely alive and well in this industry.

According to my father it is alive and well in Canadian insurance as well. But he said where he worked they don't change the COBOL code much anymore, they add features by adding layers in other languages around the COBOL core.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#23

Post by wongarsu »

keyle wrote: post #13

> supports one of the following operating systems Redhat and Ubuntu. Is that a common thing for software to be marked as "available for Linux" but only supported for 2 flavours? I guess it's fair, a debian and rhel base would cover "most" use cases.

Too often "supports linux" means "supports Ubuntu, might work on other debian based distros". But I can't blame people for not wanting to support every distro under the moon

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#24

Post by mcpherrinm »

keyle wrote: post #13

> supports one of the following operating systems Redhat and Ubuntu. Is that a common thing for software to be marked as "available for Linux" but only supported for 2 flavours? I guess it's fair, a debian and rhel base would cover "most" use cases.

In the enterprise software world: yes. Remember, this is not open source. They probably only test on those two platforms, and compile against the libraries for them. Could you make it work on other distributions? Sure. Certainly in a docker container or chroot.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#27

Post by aparsons »

IainIreland wrote: post #21
aparsons wrote: post #12

COBOL will always have a soft spot in my heart as the first programming language I learned. I did not use it much - 2 years max - but when reading COBOL it was really clear that there were some programmers who just saw code differently - in an abstract, artistic sense. It was the ultimate litmus test. COBOL is really easy to write spaghetti code with - perhaps even the default. But some of these programmers (not incl…

I worked on the IBM COBOL compiler in a past life. It's not LLVM based; the optimizer and code generator are derived from J9, the IBM JVM. I would be a bit surprised if they open-sourced it; OpenJ9 is open-sourced, but the COBOL compiler for Z is one of those rare compilers that is still being sold to paying customers.

Thanks for the insight. I strongly suspect the COBOL compiler buyers are really just buying ongoing support and updates. Open sourcing should result in minimal revenue impact, but shared code might make it quite problematic license wise. Wouldn’t blame them for turning down that headache.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#29

Post by alerighi »

mcpherrinm wrote: post #24
keyle wrote: post #13

> supports one of the following operating systems Redhat and Ubuntu. Is that a common thing for software to be marked as "available for Linux" but only supported for 2 flavours? I guess it's fair, a debian and rhel base would cover "most" use cases.

In the enterprise software world: yes. Remember, this is not open source. They probably only test on those two platforms, and compile against the libraries for them. Could you make it work on other distributions? Sure. Certainly in a docker container or chroot.

You can make it a static binary and thus make it portable on all distributions that have a minimum specified kernel version. Or you can use formats like AppImage that are designed to encapsulate a program into an image that can be run as a normal executable, without depending on the distribution but again only on the kernel.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#30

Post by xienze »

keyle wrote: post #13

> supports one of the following operating systems Redhat and Ubuntu. Is that a common thing for software to be marked as "available for Linux" but only supported for 2 flavours? I guess it's fair, a debian and rhel base would cover "most" use cases.

> Is that a common thing for software to be marked as "available for Linux" but only supported for 2 flavours?

Yes, because it keeps the support matrix smaller. As much as people like to think “Linux is Linux is Linux”, there’s all sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle system and library-level differences between distributions that can cause software to not work properly. IBM can’t and won’t test against every single distribution nor will they support their software running on whatever obscure distribution someone decides to use.

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