3 ms·
They still teach COBOL and RPG at my old tech school. Went through the class and the tech behind the old mainframes are actually pretty neat. multi CPU proces
by lithos 10y ago
They still teach COBOL and RPG at my old tech school. Went through the class and the tech behind the old mainframes are actually pretty neat. multi CPU processing, dynamically choosing which resources to use, easily transferring work to other machines and how everything works together so tightly. Just a lot of concepts that are getting 'rediscovered' instead of just looking at systems older than me (properly the same feelings that the people who learn lisp go through). They also put us through the normal java/visual basic hazing as well.
Though I ended up in electrical engineering.
- frozenport 10y agoA few concepts such as having redundant CPUs introduced a lot of technical challenges without clear pay outs. The previous inspiration was the comparably high cost of computing equipment. Redundancy techniques such as those inspired by the block chain, seem to be much hipper now days.
- theandrewbailey 10y agoWhen I peeked into mainframe development in college, it seemed like a lot of those technically heavy features were implemented because some manager said so, and someone else was willing to pay for it, no matter the practicality (or cost).