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IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

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Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#41

Post by zarq »

wongarsu wrote: post #23
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

The key word here is "support". Will it run? Probably. Is some IBM support engineer going to help you if you tried it on some other distro? No.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#44

Post by spijdar »

thequux wrote: post #35
busterarm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone with unmaintainable COBOL has long since migrated to really bad Java code instead. Sadly this is entirely untrue. What's happening in practice is they're still running COBOL and they're paying some woefully underpaid and underappreciated developers to write PHP ("Zend Core") for System-i. This allows companies to run web applications on these aging systems.

I know that Mono for i, at least, is the result of an IRC bet between a couple of hobbyists about whether it was technically possible. I wouldn't be surprised if the PHP port was similar

Mono's port was done on their own initiative. Zend Server is, however, an IBM supported product. The same goes for e.g. node.js where IBM ported all of V8 to ppc64. (There is a community version of PHP released in 2019, but the commercial version precedes this)

This same work has proved useful in running chromium on ppc64le/Linux, even if I think running node.js on IBM i sounds ridiculous ;)

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#45

Post by _-david-_ »

alerighi wrote: post #29
mcpherrinm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It may be possible, but enterprise type companies like supporting a limited number of differences. It limits the risk of having to diagnose issues that are due to some sort of weird compile option for the kernel or someone using musl instead of glibc.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#46

Post by jussij »

dragonwriter wrote: post #14
ajross wrote: post #9

I'm just imagining the level of jaw dropping and brain exploding that would have gone on had that same headline been published in 1998. Obviously at this point almost three decades into the internet era no one really cares. We all know that "somewhere" old COBOL code is running, but in practice the companies managing the bulk of data for society didn't even exist before Y2K. Everyone with unmaintainable COBOL has lon…

> Everyone with unmaintainable COBOL has long since migrated to really bad Java code instead. I can assure you that’s not correct, as I work in an enterprise that has plenty of unmaintainable COBOL still running, though they’ve supplemented it with lots of really bad .NET code more recently.

I too have seen lots of badly written .NET code out in the wild.

However, as with most languages, that is more a measure of the quality of the developer, than the quality of the language.

As a C++ developer now writing C# using .NET that new language and framework are a pleasure to work with.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#47

Post by drivingmenuts »

msgilligan wrote: post #4
d_silin wrote: post #2

The lack of comments vs position on front page is intriguing.

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

I used it back in the late 80s to handle bank account processing on a Burroughs mainframe. I got moved from a night shift sorter operator to a day shift maintenance programmer because I was literally the only available programmer in town. Had next to zero experience at the time, too.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#48

Post by dmckeon »

miohtama wrote: post #19

”Offers an extended source format that lets source text vary in length up to 252 bytes per line” - punch cards are big nowadays.

Predicting apparently highly effective file compression benchmark results due to files with larger LRECLs whose lines are padded out to 80 or 252 with space characters. “iZip-in-Cobol on Linux now 3x better - order now!”

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#49

Post by mjcohen »

m463 wrote: post #18

I remember years ago there was a contest for the most error messages from the fewest lines of code from a compiler. I believe you could get the IBM COBOL compiler to generate 600 lines of error messages if you put a single period in column 6. Of course times have changed and I don't know how to get a punched card into a linux machine. :)

Five spaces and a period.
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