Ax raises some really good points about scalability.

In the good old days, you figured out how big your mainframe needed to be and how much storage you needed. You only upgraded hardware every so often. Whole different architecture now.

So question for the folks who are way more current than I am (I left the field more than 20 years ago).

I just poked around and see something called Hercules that runs under Windows, Linux, and a bunch of other operating systems. Have the people who are still running COBOL/MVS moved these systems from the original mainframes to PCs and Macs? Or do they still have IBM mainframes?

Inquiring minds want to know....

quote:

Originally posted by Axtremus:
Since the Internet became popular, we have learnt much about what “scalability” means when it comes to computing.

Back when COBOL was state-of-the-art, not only the people managing those projects did not anticipate the scale of usage that we put on the system today, the conceptual understanding of scalability and the tools to deal with scalability were also very much less sophisticated than what we have today. From certain perspectives, it’s quite amazing that the old systems still work.

Indeed.

quote:

Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
These are state systems, not federal, Nina.

You don't think this is also an issue at the state level? I know in Arizona the governors for the past several decades ran on exactly this philosophy -- and won.

quote:

Originally posted by markj:

quote:

I've heard about places where all they had was compiled code and no source. I can't imagine how to reverse engineer a system like that.

It's called a re-write. lol

Exactly.

Depending upon how large and complex a system is, this can be a nontrivial exercise.

Just sayin'.

quote:

Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
These are state systems, not federal, Nina.

This is exactly what Grover Norquist meant when he made his infamous 'make the government so small it can be drown in a bathtub' comment. Conservatives (the far right variety which has taken over the party) don't believe in unemployment insurance.

This is why Governor Scott (and others) did this.

These public systems (including education) have been de-prioritized and de-funded for decades.

It should be noted that the Democratic Party aquiesced in these endeavors.

Here we are seeing the result.

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:
Depending upon how large and complex a system is, this can be a nontrivial exercise.

Just sayin'.

And, what frequently happens over the years is that someone adds on a little code here and there to deal with exceptional cases like leap years that end in 00 and things like that. The biggest problem in trying to reverse engineer a system is that you rarely see the effect of these little band-aids, so they don't get included in the re-write.


We've had a few interesting issues in the systems I work with now. In one case, if you don't cycle power on the system at least once every eight months (actually 248 days), there is a timer that overflows and the system goes sideways. The engineers that designed it apparently assumed no one would leave one of these things running for more than eight months without being shut down at least once.

(For the truly geeky, I think that would be a 32-bit signed variable which gives you a maximum value of 2E31 or 2,147,483,648. Assume the counter is updated at 100 Hz. 248 days is 21,427,200 seconds.)

In reality, the issue was not discovered in service but while analyzing a different anomaly. So, maybe, their assumption was correct.

https://youtu.be/OqK3f91BKys

A sad example of what I was saying above. Note, in particular, the involvement of the Supreme Court.