COBOL Trends
in [Cobol]
|
From: Paul on 17 Sep 2009 19:34 On 2009-09-16 11:46:04 -0500, Michael Wojcik <mwojcik(a)newsguy.com> said: > Paul wrote: >> >> There is room to debate, but the vast majority of computer cycles today are >> spent in client/server processing. That is really hard to argue against. > > No, it's easy to argue against. There are orders of magnitude more > embedded CPUs than general-purpose CPUs. They have lower clock rates, > but those clocks add up. Add in scientific number crunching, with > fewer systems but vastly more ops per second, and general-purpose > computing is already out of the lead. (Just take a look at the ratings > listed on top500.org.) Add in cellphones, and wave goodbye to > client/server processing as it disappears behind you. I think you are taking one view and defending it against all comes Michael. What you say is only true from one - rather narrow - viewpoint. Take cell phones for instance - how many of them just make phone calls and nothing else? Certainly my cell phone also handles text messages, e-mail, an array of tools like alarm clocks and so forth, web browsing, and so forth. Is this "traditional processing" or "client server?" I suppose it could be argued as both. Or as something entirely different, but I would argue that client-server comes far closer than traditional "general purpose" computing. Real-time, client interaction, multi-processing, using one or more remote servers to provide control and data. <shrug> It sure ain't traditional batch processing. > > The only way to support the claim that client/server processing > represents a majority of compute cycles is to broaden the definition > to absurdity and call things like MPP and cellphone traffic > "client/server". At that point the term is no longer useful. You might > as well claim the embedded CPU in a USB keyboard is a client and the > PC it's attached to is a server, and say that's client/server as well. Well, isn't it? Would you rather call it a master/slave controller relationship? Can the keyboard work or operate without being attached in some way to a PC or other controller? This is probably a case where proliferation has outstripped the technical vocabulary. We need new ways to describe it. This is of course, why I originally said there was room for discussion about it. There is just no precise language that defines it. -Paul
From: Paul on 17 Sep 2009 19:36 On 2009-09-16 21:20:44 -0500, "tlmfru" <lacey(a)mts.net> said: > Those of us that have been around for a while know what a plastic term > "client-server" is. When it first came in I wrote to a number of I/T > publications urging them to require that if an author used the term, s/he > should define it as well. (None of 'em did, more's the pity.) One author > gave as an example of a client-server success a company that sorted its > warehouse picking slips to bin number sequence! Obviously Paul, the person > to whom you're replying, needs to specify his meaning. > > PL > > > Michael Wojcik <mwojcik(a)newsguy.com> wrote in message > news:h8r72j21d46(a)news2.newsguy.com... >> The only way to support the claim that client/server processing >> represents a majority of compute cycles is to broaden the definition >> to absurdity and call things like MPP and cellphone traffic >> "client/server". At that point the term is no longer useful. You might >> as well claim the embedded CPU in a USB keyboard is a client and the >> PC it's attached to is a server, and say that's client/server as well. >> >> -- >> Michael Wojcik >> Micro Focus >> Rhetoric & Writing, Michigan State University Yep- I certainly should have, and you are correct. The whole problem is that we are all proably saying just about the same thing, but in not agreeing on the terminology. I clarified what I said to a limited degree in a previous post. -Paul
From: Paul on 17 Sep 2009 19:45 On 2009-09-16 11:40:25 -0500, Michael Wojcik <mwojcik(a)newsguy.com> said: >> >> "interesting" is a completely subjective perspective. You think email is not >> interesting as a technology; I find it fascinating, and dealing with it on >> web based applications is challenging and satisfying. > > I didn't say email wasn't interesting; I said it wasn't an interesting > example of client/server computing. It existed long before anyone > thought to coin the term "client/server computing", because even > though the usual email architecture (MUA / MTA) involves clients and > servers, there's nothing striking or innovative about that. It's the > arrangement that's obvious to any experienced practitioner. > > "Client/server computing" became a buzzword only when that > architecture began appearing in applications where it wasn't the most > obvious arrangement - applications that could easily be monolithic. > Email isn't one of those applications. > > Consequently, email doesn't mark any sort of paradigm shift to > client/server computing, and so it doesn't support any claims about > the importance of client/server computing as an idea. You are not helping to clarify what you mean with bits of inverted and convoluted logic like this. E-mail was certainly one of the first client/server applications that entered in the general awareness of people. Decades ago. And believe me, when it was developed and first started being used, it was striking, innovative, *and totally non obvious to most users*. I was there. :) The same is true of the dozens and dozens of client/server applications, tools, and protocols that followed. What you are defining as client/server computing appears to be a narrow definition constructed to support your point of view. Understand, your point of view is quite valid, but only from a limited and arbitrarily chosen viewpoint. How about stretching those mental muscles a bit? -Paul
From: Kelly Bert Manning on 26 Sep 2009 17:36 Paul (paul-nospamatall.raulerson(a)mac.com) writes: > I absolutely hate it when Pete's prognostications come true, but COBOL > is becoming near impossible to get and use on mainstream (i.e. Windows > and Linux) platforms. http://www.freebyte.com/programming/cobol/#freecobolcompilers http://www.opencobol.org
From: Robert Doerfler on 27 Sep 2009 03:35
> http://www.opencobol.org OpenCobol brought us Unix/BSD-Users through the database lectures at university last year. Our database prof loves to start the lecture's first semester with AcuCobol :/ -- Greetings, Robert |