On Fri, 2002-09-06 at 16:59, Bruce Fry wrote: > We're researching the opportunity of server consolidation through the > investment of LINUX images on our mainframe. Is anyone aware of compiler > limitations concerning programming languages, or anything at all between > Microsoft or Unix environments to LINUX? Several members of our Network > team are standing firmly in the ear of management exclaiming that LINUX is > something of a toy or IBM cash cow that will not perform up to Microsoft or > Unix standards.
If someone said Linux and Unix performed the same I'd be upset. Linux is much better ;) In terms of programming languages and compilers the standard compilers and interpreters cover pretty much everything you can imagine from Algol 60 through MUMPS in the languages nobody without a grey beard used department and all the weird stuff you'd expect (ML, scheme, J, Squeak, Icon, APlus(APL) ..) as well as all the 'usual suspects' C, C++, Objective C, Java, Fortran, Cobol .. Environment wise they are very similar, the Linux Standard Base is based on POSIX and SuS (Single Unix Specification) v2. The GUI is generally better [not an S390 issue], and the shell has cool things like cursor editing which the mainstream unix world hasnt discovered yet 8). Generally the same software runs (post recompile and any fixes for the odd bug that pops up that a port shows) on all sorts of Linux and Unix systems. They are getting more and more similar too - for example Sun have adopted the GNOME desktop that Linux uses for Solaris as well. There are certain things where Solaris has an edge - scaling to 64 processor systems is one, but for the general case I think its "unix" that is not so much the toy but antique. As to whether S/390 is an IBM cash cow, well thats a more interesting debate 8)
