4 ms·

I'm pretty sure I'm thinking about it right. How much COBOL code can run on a regular Ubuntu machine? What's the package manager for OSS packages? What test fra

by moomin 4y ago

I'm pretty sure I'm thinking about it right. How much COBOL code can run on a regular Ubuntu machine? What's the package manager for OSS packages? What test frameworks are in common use? You know you're in trouble when "There's a syntax file for VSCode." is the height of your modernity.

bitwize 4y ago
> How much COBOL code can run on a regular Ubuntu machine? All of it. GNU Cobol exists, as do proprietary solutions from companies like Micro Focus that target the JVM and .NET (which is what you're looking for for a real COBOL solution). But why is it so important to run COBOL on Ubuntu? If you need Linux, create a Linux LPAR on your mainframe. > What's the package manager for OSS packages? COBOL code runs Western civilization. Not having muh NPM is a feature, not a bug. > You know you're in trouble when "There's a syntax file for VSCode." is the height of your modernity. Dude. COBOL has entire modern IDEs written for it.
- VulgarExigency 4y ago
  There are several programming languages with package managers that work better than NPM. Not having one is not a positive no matter how you try to spin it.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I think this is a point that reasonable people can disagree about.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
    What exactly would you package manage if you had a package manager for COBOL? You will never get paid to work on any COBOL code that isn't proprietary, and sealed with the blood of innocent victims. You are not going to be installing the latest hot js framework on a mainframe.
    - msla 4y ago
      > You are not going to be installing the latest hot js framework on a mainframe. I think IBM would disagree with you, given how much they've pushed Linux (and, therefore, Linux web servers running Node and kin) on their mainframes. You won't be installing much of anything like that on a midrange system, but Linux on Z is pretty well established.
      - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
        Doesn't that depend on the client company, rather than IBM? I'm going with what I know from the one (big,financial) corp that I worked in with COBOL on mainframes; there, we didn't use linux at all. Anyway those environments are downright sclerotic (the worst thing about working with COBOL that nobody mentions). They didn't even let me install Firefox on my work laptop. They had people doing web dev, obviously, but the mainframe teams were more, let's say, conservative.
    - moomin 4y ago
      I know you’re attacking my point but I think you’re actually agreeing here. COBOL is tied to proprietary stuff running on big iron, and its claims to modernity are window dressing.
      - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
        >> I know you’re attacking my point but I think you’re actually agreeing here. I am, but I don't think your point is a bad thing- especially if it means less javascript :)
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  >> If you need Linux, create a Linux LPAR on your mainframe. Or use the super secret hidden unix mode. (and get stuck in an ed prompt. Fun times ?).
- msla 4y ago
  It's the same problem z/OS has: There's no hobbyist community so it remains obscure. Yes, you can run 1980s-era System/370 software under Hercules, but IBM keeps anything remotely modern under lock and key even though you'd think it would benefit IBM to have people indoctrinate themselves into the Blue Worldview.
  - citrin_ru 4y ago
    I don’t know if it is official IBM strategy but from outside it looks like they want all their old technologies including z/OS to die so IBM can focus on software consulting without need to build/maintain anything big themselves.
  - skissane 4y ago
    It might not be legal, but it isn't hard to find newer versions to download if you know where to look – z/OS 1.11 is floating around, it is from 2009, so still rather old, but a lot newer than the 1970s. Also you can find some OS/390 and MVS/ESA versions from before that (1990s vintage). If someone privately runs it for purely non-commercial purposes – I myself never have, but some people do – I think it is rather unlikely IBM will sue them. The easiest way to get z/OS install media is to sign up for zPDT – it costs many thousands, but still a lot cheaper than what IBM charges for z/OS for an actual physical mainframe – and then you get the the ADCD media with that. The problem is, starting with z/OS 1.15, IBM began encrypting the ADCD media. As part of the installation, the media is decrypted, using the key on the hardware dongle – but the decrypted copy is watermarked with the dongle ID, meaning that IBM can trace back any leak to the individual customer responsible for it. This means people are no longer willing to publicly share ADCD media, although I've heard rumours of some people passing it around privately, only to trusted individuals. Someone could reverse-engineer the watermarking and remove it, but I'm not aware anybody has done that–I think people would still worry, what if they failed to completely understand the watermarking, and hence some of it survived?
    - lproven 4y ago
      Can confirm. When I was experimenting with Hercules, I found z/OS 1.1.something easily. Never got it installed, but yeah, it's easy enough to find.
- anadem 4y ago
  > COBOL has entire modern IDEs written for it. In fact the very first visual compile/debug environment was written in COBOL over 40 years ago: Micro Focus's Animator (from which Microsoft paid to use the patents in their Visual products iirc).
- moomin 4y ago
  Honestly I picked Ubuntu at random. My point is there’s something intrinsically old school about something being tied to expensive proprietary hardware and while that remains true, it’s still a (possibly very lucrative) cul de sac. I’m pretty bullish about the importance of COBOL, but while I have a lot of respect for the people working with it right now, it’s not something I’d recommend to someone at the start of their career.
RobotToaster 4y ago
I assume GnuCOBOL can run on GNU/Linux. https://gnucobol.sourceforge.io/ https://gnucobol.sourceforge.io/
- msla 4y ago
  GnuCOBOL not only runs on Linux, it's pretty far along https://gnucobol.sourceforge.io/faq/index.html https://gnucobol.sourceforge.io/faq/index.html > GnuCOBOL implements a substantial part of the COBOL 85, COBOL 2002, COBOL 2014 and upcoming COBOL 202x standards, as well as many extensions from existing COBOL compilers. It's also in the Ubuntu package repos, from a quick check. The GCC Cobol aspirant recently gained compliance with Cobol-85 https://lwn.net/Articles/922951/ https://lwn.net/Articles/922951/ There is active Free Software development on Cobol tools.
  - lokedhs 4y ago
    Unless things have changed lately, it's still very annoying to get your Gnu COBOL program interacting with the test of your system. Something as simple as reading a file is a lot harder than you'd expect. And opening a TCP connection requires you to use specialised API calls to call the C functions directly, and the syntax for that was pretty horrible. COBOL is designed for handling well formed input data, process them, and then return well formed output to the next step in the chain (on the mainframes this is coordinated by JCL but I'm not sure how you do it on Linux).
- moomin 4y ago
  That’s not really the same thing is it, though? I’m sure you can write new COBOL programs using it, but the challenge is the old ones. And for a million reasons, they’re tied to big iron. It’s part of the fabric of our society, but it’s still a pain to work with.
II2II 4y ago
That would be like claiming PowerShell is irrelevant because it is not on the typical Ubuntu machine. While it is irrelevant to the typical Ubuntu user, the world is a diverse place and computing is no exception. That being said, I feel that the article made very weak arguments so I don't blame anyone for perpetuating the stereotypes. These are things such as mentioning which industries it is used in, but not being specific as to how it is used (which is important since COBOL seems to be a domain specific language) and relying upon authority when claiming it is modern.
- moomin 4y ago
  I mean, I take your point, but Powershell is actually pretty easy to run on Ubuntu. The catch with most real COBOL is that it’s fundamentally entangled with big iron.

by moomin 4y ago

bitwize 4y ago

> How much COBOL code can run on a regular Ubuntu machine? All of it. GNU Cobol exists, as do proprietary solutions from companies like Micro Focus that target the JVM and .NET (which is what you're looking for for a real COBOL solution). But why is it so important to run COBOL on Ubuntu? If you need Linux, create a Linux LPAR on your mainframe. > What's the package manager for OSS packages? COBOL code runs Western civilization. Not having muh NPM is a feature, not a bug. > You know you're in trouble when "There's a syntax file for VSCode." is the height of your modernity. Dude. COBOL has entire modern IDEs written for it.

VulgarExigency 4y ago
There are several programming languages with package managers that work better than NPM. Not having one is not a positive no matter how you try to spin it.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I think this is a point that reasonable people can disagree about.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  What exactly would you package manage if you had a package manager for COBOL? You will never get paid to work on any COBOL code that isn't proprietary, and sealed with the blood of innocent victims. You are not going to be installing the latest hot js framework on a mainframe.
  - msla 4y ago
    > You are not going to be installing the latest hot js framework on a mainframe. I think IBM would disagree with you, given how much they've pushed Linux (and, therefore, Linux web servers running Node and kin) on their mainframes. You won't be installing much of anything like that on a midrange system, but Linux on Z is pretty well established.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
      Doesn't that depend on the client company, rather than IBM? I'm going with what I know from the one (big,financial) corp that I worked in with COBOL on mainframes; there, we didn't use linux at all. Anyway those environments are downright sclerotic (the worst thing about working with COBOL that nobody mentions). They didn't even let me install Firefox on my work laptop. They had people doing web dev, obviously, but the mainframe teams were more, let's say, conservative.
  - moomin 4y ago
    I know you’re attacking my point but I think you’re actually agreeing here. COBOL is tied to proprietary stuff running on big iron, and its claims to modernity are window dressing.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
      >> I know you’re attacking my point but I think you’re actually agreeing here. I am, but I don't think your point is a bad thing- especially if it means less javascript :)
YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
>> If you need Linux, create a Linux LPAR on your mainframe. Or use the super secret hidden unix mode. (and get stuck in an ed prompt. Fun times ?).
msla 4y ago
It's the same problem z/OS has: There's no hobbyist community so it remains obscure. Yes, you can run 1980s-era System/370 software under Hercules, but IBM keeps anything remotely modern under lock and key even though you'd think it would benefit IBM to have people indoctrinate themselves into the Blue Worldview.
- citrin_ru 4y ago
  I don’t know if it is official IBM strategy but from outside it looks like they want all their old technologies including z/OS to die so IBM can focus on software consulting without need to build/maintain anything big themselves.
- skissane 4y ago
  It might not be legal, but it isn't hard to find newer versions to download if you know where to look – z/OS 1.11 is floating around, it is from 2009, so still rather old, but a lot newer than the 1970s. Also you can find some OS/390 and MVS/ESA versions from before that (1990s vintage). If someone privately runs it for purely non-commercial purposes – I myself never have, but some people do – I think it is rather unlikely IBM will sue them. The easiest way to get z/OS install media is to sign up for zPDT – it costs many thousands, but still a lot cheaper than what IBM charges for z/OS for an actual physical mainframe – and then you get the the ADCD media with that. The problem is, starting with z/OS 1.15, IBM began encrypting the ADCD media. As part of the installation, the media is decrypted, using the key on the hardware dongle – but the decrypted copy is watermarked with the dongle ID, meaning that IBM can trace back any leak to the individual customer responsible for it. This means people are no longer willing to publicly share ADCD media, although I've heard rumours of some people passing it around privately, only to trusted individuals. Someone could reverse-engineer the watermarking and remove it, but I'm not aware anybody has done that–I think people would still worry, what if they failed to completely understand the watermarking, and hence some of it survived?
  - lproven 4y ago
    Can confirm. When I was experimenting with Hercules, I found z/OS 1.1.something easily. Never got it installed, but yeah, it's easy enough to find.
anadem 4y ago
> COBOL has entire modern IDEs written for it. In fact the very first visual compile/debug environment was written in COBOL over 40 years ago: Micro Focus's Animator (from which Microsoft paid to use the patents in their Visual products iirc).
moomin 4y ago
Honestly I picked Ubuntu at random. My point is there’s something intrinsically old school about something being tied to expensive proprietary hardware and while that remains true, it’s still a (possibly very lucrative) cul de sac. I’m pretty bullish about the importance of COBOL, but while I have a lot of respect for the people working with it right now, it’s not something I’d recommend to someone at the start of their career.

RobotToaster 4y ago

I assume GnuCOBOL can run on GNU/Linux. https://gnucobol.sourceforge.io/ https://gnucobol.sourceforge.io/

msla 4y ago
GnuCOBOL not only runs on Linux, it's pretty far along https://gnucobol.sourceforge.io/faq/index.html https://gnucobol.sourceforge.io/faq/index.html > GnuCOBOL implements a substantial part of the COBOL 85, COBOL 2002, COBOL 2014 and upcoming COBOL 202x standards, as well as many extensions from existing COBOL compilers. It's also in the Ubuntu package repos, from a quick check. The GCC Cobol aspirant recently gained compliance with Cobol-85 https://lwn.net/Articles/922951/ https://lwn.net/Articles/922951/ There is active Free Software development on Cobol tools.
- lokedhs 4y ago
  Unless things have changed lately, it's still very annoying to get your Gnu COBOL program interacting with the test of your system. Something as simple as reading a file is a lot harder than you'd expect. And opening a TCP connection requires you to use specialised API calls to call the C functions directly, and the syntax for that was pretty horrible. COBOL is designed for handling well formed input data, process them, and then return well formed output to the next step in the chain (on the mainframes this is coordinated by JCL but I'm not sure how you do it on Linux).
moomin 4y ago
That’s not really the same thing is it, though? I’m sure you can write new COBOL programs using it, but the challenge is the old ones. And for a million reasons, they’re tied to big iron. It’s part of the fabric of our society, but it’s still a pain to work with.

II2II 4y ago

That would be like claiming PowerShell is irrelevant because it is not on the typical Ubuntu machine. While it is irrelevant to the typical Ubuntu user, the world is a diverse place and computing is no exception. That being said, I feel that the article made very weak arguments so I don't blame anyone for perpetuating the stereotypes. These are things such as mentioning which industries it is used in, but not being specific as to how it is used (which is important since COBOL seems to be a domain specific language) and relying upon authority when claiming it is modern.

moomin 4y ago
I mean, I take your point, but Powershell is actually pretty easy to run on Ubuntu. The catch with most real COBOL is that it’s fundamentally entangled with big iron.