> From: Stephen A. Lawrence Just a couple of side comments...
... > Now, what "routine maintenance" was going on in the software world? > Darn little, because almost nothing was "routine" in those days. The > only established software base with anything like a "routine" > associated with it was the IBM mainframe world, where the universe > still ran on COBOL and PL/1. In my experience, within the mainframe world COBOL still rules - as does PL/1, particularly in certain academic institutions. > Everything else was barely more than > nascent, and what's more things were changing so fast that almost > nobody believed any software they wrote was still going to be in use > in 5 years, let alone 20 years! You plan for things you think may > actually happen; the idea that a piece of code written that year was > still going to be in use in the year 2000 seemed like an obvious > absurdity. ...and yet, as absurd as it might sound, that is precisely what DIDN'T happen in our shop. Back in the early 80s our techno geeks wrote a sophisticated File Handler database program based on IBM's MVS core operating system, all written in BAL - assembler language. That was when IBM was still willing to publish the source code to their OS. The database system our shop developed worked quite well, especially for its time, well ahead of most other storage retrieval systems. Of course, as the 1990's approached and new mainframe data base retrieval systems became more prevalent like, VSAM, IMS, followed by DB/2 it became obvious that the shop would have to eventually entire the old "file handler" system. The shop's worst fears revolved around the fact that huge chunks of the filer handler operating system contained "legacy code" no longer supported by IBM. Management created a five to seven year plan to convert all the current computer systems using File Handler over to VSAM, IMS! - and then to DB/2 within five years. Management "planning" was started back around 1985. It's 2005 and our shop STILL has actively used systems using File Handler. It's simply amazing how entrenched certain software systems can become within the mainframe world. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
