> -----Original Message----- > From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of > Hall, Ken (ECSS) > Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 12:13 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: LinuxWorld Article series > > > Anyone seen this? > > Aside from some (fairly glaring) technical inaccuracies, I can't > see much I'm qualified to dispute. > > http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0416.mainframelinux.html >
But the "glaring technical inaccuracies" lead me to question his conclusions about Linux on S/390. I suspect that while he knows a great deal about the Unix environment and the typical Unix user mindset, his grasp of the "mainframe" world is limited, to say the least. He seems to fixate on the mainframe a "batch-oriented" and Unix as interactive, and that "interactive" doesn't work well on mainframes. He obviously has never used CMS on VM (or CP/VM as he calls it...); it's as interactive and responsive as any Linux system I've used. And his statement that TSO and CMS "load as batch jobs" is just pure nonsense...... One statement struck me as clearly incorrect is the following: "In contrast, most mainframe control environments, including loadable libraries and related systems level applications, are written and maintained very close to the hardware -- usually in PL/1 or assembler but often with handwritten or at least "tweaked" object code -- to use far fewer cycles than their C language Unix equivalents. This statement is wrong on two separate counts: 1) most mainframe programming (well above 50%) is still done in COBOL, with PL/I, Assembler, Fortran, etc. splitting the rest. 2) PL/I is lots of things, but "close to the hardware" ain't one of them. :-) Overall this article appears to be not so much concerned with Linux running on a S/390 environment, but a diatribe against mainframes in general and the overall superiority of SUN boxes. That seems to be the whole thrust of the paragarphs on "mutually contingent evolution." (whatever that is.....). I suspect that Paul Murphy is a shill for SUN. DJ
