[Info-vax] And another one bites the dust....

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 2/17/22 14:17, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 2/17/2022 1:59 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 2/17/2022 11:01 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 2/17/2022 9:42 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>> On 2/17/22 09:21, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>> On 2/16/2022 9:41 PM, dthi... at gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>>> On Tuesday, February 15, 2022 at 8:05:01 AM UTC-5, Bill Gunshannon
>>>>>>> wrote: National Computing Group West Mifflin, PA
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Document, plan and execute the modernization of Fortran
>>>>>>> applications running on OpenVMS systems to a virtualized Windows
>>>>>>> Server environment.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'd like to point out to everyone that this posting specifically
>>>>>> calls out modernizing FORTRAN, which CANNOT be done on OpenVMS, as
>>>>>> the OpenVMS FORTRAN compiler is over 25 years old. The commercial and
>>>>>> scientific FORTRAN code base out there is massive, as is the
>>>>>> commercial COBOL code base. I am aware of many companies modernizing
>>>>>> their FORTRAN code bases to use the new object oriented methods of
>>>>>> the later FORTRAN standards, which can be compiled with the Intel
>>>>>> Fortran compiler and the later gfortran compilers.
>>>>>
>>>>> It talks about "modernization of Fortran applications", which can 
>>>>> really
>>>>> be move Fortran code as it to newer platform, upgrade from old Fortran
>>>>> to newer Fortran or rewrite from Fortran to newer language.
>>>>
>>>> This is one of the problems with the term "modernization".
>>>> To some it means use modern capabilities of the original
>>>> language that increase the efficiency and readability of
>>>> a program while to others it means scrap the old program
>>>> and re-write it in the language du jour.  The second option
>>>> seldom being necessary or of any added value,
>>>
>>> The industry seems to think otherwise since it is happening
>>> a lot.
>>>
>>>>>> I've complained to both HPE and VSI for years that you can't attract
>>>>>> new developers to the platform, and thus grow your customer base, if
>>>>>> you don't provide modern software development tools and tool chains.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes.
>>>>>
>>>>> Existing customers need compatibility.
>>>>>
>>>>> New customers needs modern languages, tools, libraries, frameworks
>>>>> etc. that tyhe industry expect today.
>>>>
>>>> Even if the so called "modern languages" actually bring no added
>>>> value to the table?
>>>
>>> The industry thinks they do.
> 
>> What I rarely see is practical considerations.
>>
>> Joe wiz kid comes along and tells his employer how they must "upgrade" 
>> to modern standards.  But, Joe wiz kid isn't going to pay for the 
>> effort.  That is left to the employer, who just might be rather happy 
>> with the fully functional and working current solutions.
> 
> If the CTO/CIO is worth his/her salary then the pro's and con's
> of a migration will be analyzed before a decision is made.
> 
> Sometimes the decision is to migrate. Sometimes the decision is
> not to migrate.
> 
> Not to migrate is probably the most common.
> 
> But the question comes up again and again. If the question comes
> up every 3 years and it is 20% migrate 80% keep, then after 24
> years 87% has migrated.
> 
>> I'd like to know just who and what the "industry" Arne refers to is? 
>> It's always easy to use some nebulous term.  But just what is it? 
>> Perhaps it is a "transfer", as in "transfer your money to us"?
> 
> It is all those companies using IT. And the decisions they make.
> 

You mean all those people running zSystems with COBOL, DB2 and CICS
that actually make up the largest majority of the money makers in the
world?  The ones who have been told for at least 4 decades that the
mainframe is dead.  Oh yeah, and so is COBOL.  But then, didn't Byte
predict the death of Unix back in September 1992.  :-)

bill