Hi Folks,
Richard has expressed, rather precisely and simply, how I feel about my
own current situation. I have spent the last eighteen months cast into a
*nix environment(HP-UX, Linux, Sun, IBM, DEC, and yes SCO) and I have had to
literally replace years of thinking and reacting to a known
envionment(MPE/iX). I am learning Oracle and it seems all so
counter-intuitive and unnecessarily complicated after being with Image all
these incredible years, but these are the platforms my company uses in its
current products.
I was up late last night researching why a Sun box(executing a C
program) writing to a file greater than 2147483647(2^31-1) bytes would not
indicate back to the program(condition codes were being checked) that a
limit had been reached and that it would no longer write data to the disc,
but instead continue on and complete "successfully", record counts and all,
yet appending another file to this "maxed out" file with cp worked fine.
Must be some I/O process that the compiler pulled into the binary that
caused this, and I know I will be hitting other "snags".
My point being, along Richard's line, is that we will all have to deal
with the new realities and that our jobs are more difficult(at first)
although I feel after being with MPE/iX that I have taken a giant step
backwards, but maybe we can have some influence in our new world as to what
we expect an OS to do.
MPE/iX would never have let me think my write process was
successfull(condition codes or not). I have realized that MPE/iX has spoiled
me from the standpoint of what I expect an OS to do and that it has set a
very high bar of what can be accomplished, very sophisticated yet straight
forward. And to think the basis for this was set down over 30 years
ago...the world will catch up, but MPE/iX did it first.
Eric Sand
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Barker [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 2:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] more "modern" systems
This isn't a case of new technology it's just a typical case of bad design.
I've been moving to ASP.NET/C#.NET/MS SQL over the last year from
COBOL/Powerhouse/Image and of course after a very painful beginning, I am
starting to love it. All the things you mention below should have been
considered when designing the workflow of the application.
Unfortunately an inherent problem with IT is this idea that new technology
solves all your problems. Of course as most people on this list know it's
not the language that makes the programmer, it's his experience and
knowledge. Yet every new Joe that comes out of school, tells me that Cobol
is useless, XML is the only way to do anything.
I employed a new guy about 6 months ago is obsessed with XML. Sure it has
it's uses, but it doesn't mean it solves world hunger and should be applied
in every situation. The latest fad seems to be XML databases, why on Earth
after all the pain of now moving to RDBMS, should we take huge step
backwards.
UML is good, but anyone would think that nothing existed before UML and that
there is no other way of documenting program design.
I guess I am getting old.
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul D. Christensen [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 22 April 2004 18:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [HP3000-L] more "modern" systems
today I experienced the joys of using a more "advanced" system than the
HP3000.
I filled out the website form for my local bank's on-line banking system.
Had to fill in various items, name, social security number, mother's maiden
name, bank account number,
password question, password, etc.
Then it takes you to a new screen where I was shown an error message
stating that one of the fields
was missing or incorrect.
I had filled in all of the required fields, so it must have been that some
field was incorrect.
Back to the previous screen, which is now blank and I start all over
again. Only to get the same
error message again....
Now isn't this **way** better than that dumb old view screen, which would
have highlighted the
field in error and left the rest of the data on the screen for me to
correct and hit enter again!
I've called the bank - found out it was because I put a dash in my account
number - and I'm back at
the blank screen, filling in all of the fields for the 4th or 5th try.
Paul D. Christensen
PC Enterprises Inc. [log in to unmask]
206 Central Avenue
P.O. Box 369
Osakis MN 56360-0369 (www.lakeosakismn.com)
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