[Info-vax] Licenses on VAX/VMS 4.0/4.1 source code listing scans

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 12/11/2021 1:40 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 12/11/21 11:51 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 12/11/2021 8:20 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>             Kind of like COBOL.  It is probably one of the
>>> most used languages for serious business applications in use
>>> today.  Some of the largest information systems in the world
>>> are written in it.  Everybody is affected by its use every day.
>>
>> If an application:
>> - is processing money
>> - first version was written before 1995
>> - has not been rewritten after 1995
>> then there is a good chance that it is in Cobol.
> 
> And, not just processing money.
> 
>> And a lot of those applications are very important applications.
>>
>> But I am not so sure that it is one of the most used languages.
> 
> I didn't say most used languages.  I limited myself to serious
> business.  There is no COBOL version of Candy Crush.
> 
>> The estimate is that Cobol is about 200 billion out of 3 trillion lines
>> of code (7%). And based on hiring statistics it looks like Cobol
>> work is like 1% of development work being done.
> 
> Many of the times those hiring statistics are compiled by thge
> people trying to kill COBOL.

I am very skeptical about such a conspiracy theory.

>                            I have watched the number of COBOL
> jobs publicly advertised rise by  more than 1000% in the past
> 5-10 years.

Hmmm.

At the big job sites the number of Cobol jobs has decreased by
2/3 the last 15 years.

>                   I have followed and even been involved with some of
> the largest COBOL users and watched their hiring practices. Believe it 
> or not, not everyone hires thru Indeed, Monster or Dice.

Not everyone.

But assuming that Cobol is many times more required in the total
job market than there seems like wishful thinking from someone that
likes Cobol.

>> And all the largest systems are distributed. They use
>> Hadoop, Cassandra, Kafka etc.. Traditional technologies
>> does simply not scale to that level.
> 
> You wanna bet?  While some of the frontend stuff has mofrated to
> the typical web crap the IRS for example is still a Unisys OS2200
> shop with the code being mostly Legacy ACOB carried forward from
> its origination on a UNIVAC 1100.

Yes. And that system may have been a big system 30 years ago.

But today large systems are NNN/NNNN nodes, NNNN CPU's, N/NN TB memory 
and N PB disk.

Arne