IBM COBOL for Linux on x86 • Hacker News Board

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#61

Post by qwerty456127 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #37

One of the VAX computers I rescued from disposal at the height of the Y2K impending apocolypse came with licenses (PAKs for those in the know) for DEC COBOL, DEC RDBMS, and DEC FORMS. These three applications formed the backbone of payroll processing for the company that was tossing the VAX. This machine, processed the payroll for a bit over 5,000 employees on a "clustered" machine that had a combined total of 512MB…

> I can assure you that "Quickbook Payroll" would not be able to handle this on a similarly resourced x86 machine. Not even close.

Why? I've been into x86 databases since the Windows NT days and 5000 doesn't seem an impressive number to me.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#62

Post by JediPig » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:22 AM UTC

IBM can piss off.. they bought RH, and now RH can piss off.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#63

Post by toomanybeersies » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

That's old news. COBOL on Kubernetes is the current bleeding edge: https://github.com/IBM/kubernetes-cobol

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#64

Post by acdha » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #54

jussij wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> However, as with most languages, that is more a measure of the quality of the developer, than the quality of the language. No, it’s more a measure of the quality of the development organization and process . The quality of individual developers is a factor here, but not the only one and often not the limiting one on software quality (and particularly often not on, e g., whether or not business requirements and syst…

Quite right — and to the extent that the blame goes to any individual developers, that comes back to the organization: do they pay well, offer a good working environment, etc.? One bad hire, sure, it happens but if it’s repeating that’s structural.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#65

Post by belter » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:45 AM UTC

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…

COBOL working on Red Hat OpenShift/Kubernetes:

https://developer.ibm.com/technologies/systems/videos/gettin...

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#66

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

russh wrote: post #50

gt565k wrote: post #42

costco still uses ibm as/400

I know several places still using AS/400's, I wish they would stop calling me about software I wrote over 30 years ago.

[deleted]

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#67

Post by the_af » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:56 AM UTC

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 worked with COBOL just in time to fix Y2K problems, and I still have nightmares about it -- not about Y2K, mind you, but about COBOL and banking systems. Such a horrible, horrible programming language.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#68

Post by space_ghost » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #37

One of the VAX computers I rescued from disposal at the height of the Y2K impending apocolypse came with licenses (PAKs for those in the know) for DEC COBOL, DEC RDBMS, and DEC FORMS. These three applications formed the backbone of payroll processing for the company that was tossing the VAX. This machine, processed the payroll for a bit over 5,000 employees on a "clustered" machine that had a combined total of 512MB…

What's so burdensome about payroll processing? It seems straightforward enough.

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#69

Post by sys_64738 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

I remember the first IDE I ever used back in 1988 on MS-DOS was a COBOL IDE from 1983. It felt ancient back then too!

Re: IBM COBOL for Linux on x86

#70

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:19 AM UTC

chasil wrote: post #52

ChuckMcM wrote: post #37

One of the VAX computers I rescued from disposal at the height of the Y2K impending apocolypse came with licenses (PAKs for those in the know) for DEC COBOL, DEC RDBMS, and DEC FORMS. These three applications formed the backbone of payroll processing for the company that was tossing the VAX. This machine, processed the payroll for a bit over 5,000 employees on a "clustered" machine that had a combined total of 512MB…

Can't you get all this stuff with a hobbiest license and a full media kit? Doesn't macro32 on alpha or itanium run old VAX binaries transparently? Why keep the antiques? Even SimH seems a better option (assuming the licenses work). http://www.openvmshobbyist.com/news.php

You could, except that they stopped the hobbiest program sadly.