4 ms·

Genuinely interested: When you say you are in love with the system, is it because you think of yourself as kind of a luddite programmer, or do you believe ther

by gt2 8y ago

Genuinely interested: When you say you are in love with the system, is it because you think of yourself as kind of a luddite programmer, or do you believe there's something that mainframes and Cobol do that other stacks can't? Or are you looking for work that pays a premium due to the obscure skillset?

wolco 8y ago
There is a pleasure in getting the most out of older technology.
wilsonnb2 8y ago
For the record, modern mainframes are not for luddites. They can run Linux natively and they have a very advanced hypervisor that you can use for Linux as well. As far as I know, IBM invented virtualization back in the 70s and coined the term "hypervisor", and they've been continuing to innovate in the field since then. zOS itself feels dated because of the 3270 based interface that you use to interact with it and the fact that a lot of esoteric languages are still used heavily, but the OS and hardware are both cutting edge on the inside. Node.js, Swift, Java, and Python 2 and 3 all run on zOS nowadays.
SuperPaintMan 8y ago
Because it's the closest thing to alien tech that I've come across. It maintains compatibility for programs compiled in the 60s while still pushing the boundaries of modern tech. Hell, go take a look at a fully configured z14 and tell me that isn't a beautiful work of art (capable of handling thousands of users across thousands of virtualized or native systems). The interface is archaic as a poster under commented but there is some serious machine underneath it, with amazing amounts of documentation and established audited code. I cut my teeth on Linux/BSD systems and the way these systems are engineered is both elegant and thought out instead of heaping piles of duct tape. Although seeing the unit of measurement of "Cards" every now and again does get a giggle out of me. Also: "Yeah but oh man, wouldn't you just love to get one of those Gibsons, baby? Ooooh!"
- exikyut 8y ago
  I've long been curious about mainframes. It's interesting you say they're well-designed and not made of Swiss cheese and duct tape. Archaic yet well documented sounds actually quite nice. The z14 does indeed look awesome. One of my crazy hopes is to stumble on a z series chassis one day so I can retrofit a fridge inside of it. Yeah. (Because I know I'm not exactly going to be able to get a real one... and I'll poke my fridge a lot more than I poke any racks of equipment in any basements. :D) Also: > [I]t's the closest thing to alien tech that I've come across. Mostly for entertainment value (for an interesting/oddball interpretation of "entertainment" that I think you might resonate with) take a look at ColorForth. Forth itself is a very odd little system, ColorForth an especially arcane implementation of it. But it's cute in an odd kind of way. Almost completely practical, except maybe for the educational journey Forth imparts.
- southern_cross 8y ago
  "capable of handling thousands of users across thousands of virtualized or native systems": Yeah, the systems that I often work on can usually handle those kinds of work loads with extreme reliability and efficiency without even breaking a sweat. Meanwhile the server folks will look at that kind of stuff and almost wet themselves. On "cards": Open a terminal session or a command prompt on almost any system ("new" or "old"), and it will generally default to being 80 columns wide. Guess where that default comes from!
  - SuperPaintMan 8y ago
    I knew about 80 just being a standard but put into the context of punch cards it just makes sense. Same thing with cobol, max line length is 80, first seven are stripped from compile, comments start on line 7. Who thought 72 char lines were a good idea in a language? Guys that dropped a few too many stacks of cards. Thank god for the continuation character.

by gt2 8y ago

wolco 8y ago

There is a pleasure in getting the most out of older technology.

wilsonnb2 8y ago

For the record, modern mainframes are not for luddites. They can run Linux natively and they have a very advanced hypervisor that you can use for Linux as well. As far as I know, IBM invented virtualization back in the 70s and coined the term "hypervisor", and they've been continuing to innovate in the field since then. zOS itself feels dated because of the 3270 based interface that you use to interact with it and the fact that a lot of esoteric languages are still used heavily, but the OS and hardware are both cutting edge on the inside. Node.js, Swift, Java, and Python 2 and 3 all run on zOS nowadays.

SuperPaintMan 8y ago

Because it's the closest thing to alien tech that I've come across. It maintains compatibility for programs compiled in the 60s while still pushing the boundaries of modern tech. Hell, go take a look at a fully configured z14 and tell me that isn't a beautiful work of art (capable of handling thousands of users across thousands of virtualized or native systems). The interface is archaic as a poster under commented but there is some serious machine underneath it, with amazing amounts of documentation and established audited code. I cut my teeth on Linux/BSD systems and the way these systems are engineered is both elegant and thought out instead of heaping piles of duct tape. Although seeing the unit of measurement of "Cards" every now and again does get a giggle out of me. Also: "Yeah but oh man, wouldn't you just love to get one of those Gibsons, baby? Ooooh!"

exikyut 8y ago
I've long been curious about mainframes. It's interesting you say they're well-designed and not made of Swiss cheese and duct tape. Archaic yet well documented sounds actually quite nice. The z14 does indeed look awesome. One of my crazy hopes is to stumble on a z series chassis one day so I can retrofit a fridge inside of it. Yeah. (Because I know I'm not exactly going to be able to get a real one... and I'll poke my fridge a lot more than I poke any racks of equipment in any basements. :D) Also: > [I]t's the closest thing to alien tech that I've come across. Mostly for entertainment value (for an interesting/oddball interpretation of "entertainment" that I think you might resonate with) take a look at ColorForth. Forth itself is a very odd little system, ColorForth an especially arcane implementation of it. But it's cute in an odd kind of way. Almost completely practical, except maybe for the educational journey Forth imparts.
southern_cross 8y ago
"capable of handling thousands of users across thousands of virtualized or native systems": Yeah, the systems that I often work on can usually handle those kinds of work loads with extreme reliability and efficiency without even breaking a sweat. Meanwhile the server folks will look at that kind of stuff and almost wet themselves. On "cards": Open a terminal session or a command prompt on almost any system ("new" or "old"), and it will generally default to being 80 columns wide. Guess where that default comes from!
- SuperPaintMan 8y ago
  I knew about 80 just being a standard but put into the context of punch cards it just makes sense. Same thing with cobol, max line length is 80, first seven are stripped from compile, comments start on line 7. Who thought 72 char lines were a good idea in a language? Guys that dropped a few too many stacks of cards. Thank god for the continuation character.