Post #114,199
8/18/03 2:48:29 PM
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TheInq - HP's doing stupid things with VMS and UNIX support.
[link|http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11093|Here] is an interesting article based on rumblings at HP regarding VMS and UNIX support. THE EVIDENCE of HP's outsourcing leaves one question hanging, and it is a big, lucrative one, what is happening to the VMS and Unix support? Is HP keeping it in house, outsourcing it, consolidating it, or simply shuffling it around to get rid of managers who speak up? Well, simply put, no one is talking, and currently we are leaning towards leaving things in place and whittling down staff along with customers.
[...]
So we know where they are going, but what about the short term? These transitions happen over years, not days, are there any signs hinting at the future? Sure, [link|http://groups.google.ch/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&th=77b08ab2eb35ea10&rnum=2|check this]. Things like this are not encouraging, and suggest a shrinking talent pool for a very specialized, highly skilled workforce. They could be a nail in the coffin for VMS, and are not ignored by companies using the OS. Once the talent pool becomes small enough so you don't want to maintain a support center in every market, what do you do? Consolidate.
[...]
So, what is that hitch? Well, think about this, if you are a governmental security agency, do you want the contents of what you are working on at the time sent to a foreign country for analysis? Is it legal to ship the dump that may contain medical records off to India? Is it wise to fire off the dump containing 8GB of credit card transactions to Eastern Europe? In order, no, no, and no, but it looks like it may well be the New HP Way, there will soon be no other choice. Did we mention customers are running away as fast as they can? Think HP realizes this?
Overall, the situation for non-MS, non-Linux OSes at HP looks several shades beyond grim. Even if the messages being sent are truly wrong, and there is no higher priority at HP than supporting these products, the damage has been done. Customers like this don't move more than once every few decades, and are reluctant to do so even if there is a gun to their heads. With the number of customers leaving, and presumably not coming back in this lifetime, is there enough money coming in to support development of these machines? Unfortunately, it does not look like there is. While we have heard no direct evidence about any HP plans for this class of hardware and software, there is little that can be done at this point, the die is cast. \ufffd I fear that HP's apparent attitude in this regard is far too common. Quarterly reports to stock brokers has done a lot to wreck long-term investment and long-term management of US corporations. It would be nice to think that something will turn this short-sightedness around soon, but I can't yet see it. Cheers, Scott.
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Post #114,204
8/18/03 3:57:10 PM
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Re: TheInq - HP's doing stupid things with VMS and UNIX..
All the jobs seem to be in Java and .NET - in other words, it's not gotten better since the Fall, but much worse - the lamers who created the mess are still in charge and the techs who were the only opposition are now working at Wal-Mart or not at all.
How in hell did this Java insanity ever get off the ground? Will the world ever escape fucking P-code?
-drl
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Post #114,225
8/18/03 7:02:57 PM
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Re: TheInq - HP's doing stupid things with VMS and UNIX..
How in hell did this Java insanity ever get off the ground? Will the world ever escape fucking P-code? By meeting business needs, I guess...
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #114,270
8/19/03 1:37:08 AM
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Re: TheInq - HP's doing stupid things with VMS and UNIX..
What business needs? That idiot/liars from the Indian subcontinent are willing to do it - badly - for slave wages?
-drl
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Post #114,243
8/18/03 9:02:47 PM
8/18/03 9:10:54 PM
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And what would you propose Ross?
You bitch about p-code languages like Java, but aren't Python and PHP about the same (interpreted languages)? Then we have Todd, pushing Smalltalk or Squeak, another interpreted language.
Scott M. would tell you that Python is the "new lingua franca".
With 2.4ghz processors the norm, and 3.0ghz processors annouced and 4-5ghz next year, what's the problem with p-code?
I work in a C++ environment, after having just left a Java environment, and guess what? I'd rather be doing Java, PHP, Python, or just about anything other than C++. Not that the language is particularly difficult for me, it just seems to take FOREVER to get things done, compared to Java or Python.
I'm in the process of pushing Java, PHP, or Python now, in my new job, because we have a need to GET THINGS DONE.
So what would you propose? Assembly language?
Are you the Delphi bigot here? Let me guess, you are...
I actually like Delphi, what I've done of it. But, unfortunately, Elvis has left the building, and most people have already relegated Delphi to the recycle bin. The user base isn't growing, it's shrinking.
I know of a handful of Delphi projects in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, but they're maintenance. No one is doing new code in Delphi that I know of.
And with processor power where it is, and doubling again every 18 months, I can't say that I blame them for seeking rapid development, interpreted solutions.
I'm not saying that you're bad, or Delphi is bad. But it's kind of like deciding to remain a COBOL programmer. Over time your options will become ever more limited.
So, either you cling onto the past, seek the next project in "your" language, or you decide to learn something new.
Perhaps, you could teach Java some new tricks, just like Jython is currently extending Java with Python-like capabilities. DelJav? JavaPhi? (sound likes of fraternity-ish)
Glen
Edited by gdaustin
Aug. 18, 2003, 09:09:48 PM EDT
Edited by gdaustin
Aug. 18, 2003, 09:10:54 PM EDT
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Post #114,244
8/18/03 9:13:30 PM
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More
I will give you Delphi guys this. You're passionate about the language. And if you know it, there are a LOT of handy dandy utilities.
I like the thing someone did a few months ago to my Delphi code (when I was doing Delphi). I had a 200 line routine to calculate yesterday, and they basically replaced it with a 1 line routine that said something like today() - 1.
Sadly, I've turned in the laptop from the old job, so my Delphi coding days are over.
The market is Java, Python, PHP, or VB. With a little bit of C and C++ left.
And as computers get faster and faster, more and more solutions will be based on interpreted environments.
Glen
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Post #114,245
8/18/03 10:04:24 PM
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You've confused DRL (APL bigot) with CRC (Delphi bigot)! :-)
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Post #114,251
8/18/03 11:00:32 PM
8/18/03 11:02:45 PM
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Oops! Sorry!
But APL is interpreted!
So what is he complaining about? Should I revise the post to remove my blather about Delphi?
Edited by gdaustin
Aug. 18, 2003, 11:02:45 PM EDT
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Post #114,265
8/19/03 1:03:42 AM
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Re: Oops! Sorry!
APL is not P-code, nor is Smalltalk. Smalltalk is byte-code, which is much different and like FORTH, "compiled interpretation". BASIC is none of the above. P-code is stupid and inefficient, was rightly rejected in 1980 (UCSD Pascal), and is barely a step above BASIC.
APL, FORTH, and Smalltalk all have a REAL VM with direct, immediate interpretation, not a stupid fucked-up P-code interpreter.
-drl
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Post #114,292
8/19/03 7:41:03 AM
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I think it depends on your definition of "p-code".
Nowadays, to most people the term "p-code" means rather more than what UCSD Pascal used to create. It's true that Smalltalk create a intermediate form often called "byte-code", but it is virtual assembly language for the specific virtual machine. Quite a lot of modern languages work like this - so much that the stage in front normally called a compiler has a common name: translater. Even BASIC interpreters of past actually ran virtual code in a virtual machine: almost all of the home computer BASICs translated the entered text into tokens for storage - a pseudo-code, if you like. Of course, the single biggest thing you've overlooked is that all these pseudo-codes are extremely tailored for their language and their environment.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
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Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #114,349
8/19/03 3:44:47 PM
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Rexx on warp does something similar
It creates tokenized code. That code is stored in the command file's extended attribute, leading to a much quicker load time on subsequent runs of the code. It works extremely well and really helps performance.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #115,033
8/23/03 3:00:48 AM
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Good example.
Other variations would be how Perl and PHP do it - translation on invocation, p-code is thrown away after execution - and how Icon and Java do it - explicit translation to a second file. It's even obvious with Icon: the program you run is called icont - meaning Icon Translator.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #115,247
8/25/03 12:06:59 AM
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I've actually been thinking about this for a while
I'm thinking that perhaps for my honour project (if I can afford a fourth year of school) I'd like to take a shot at writing an object rexx interpreter, to be licensed under the GPL. For one thing, there are some serious problems with the object rexx interpreter under warp when you want to interface it to programs written in C, since the RexxStart call doesn't account for the fact that object rexx programs can be threaded, which means that one can end up leaving open semaphores until process termination... which can terminally suck for daemons. The problem is that IBM won't fix it unless one wants to dole out some serious money. The other solution is a wholesale replacement of the subsystem... and if it was written properly, it should end up being easily portable to other systems: a dll in warp, a program in unix, and a plugin for wsh in windows.
I don't think that I'd be able to do a complete reimplementation or anything, but if I could get something that covered most of the basics, opening it up to the developer community by putting it under the GPL could make it something that would be viable in the long run.
This is all at least a year away, of course; I think I might be in a position to start looking at it seriously towards the end of this coming school year (second year).
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #114,266
8/19/03 1:04:07 AM
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I propose intelligence. I have no hope of course.
-drl
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