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Tom Linden
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 841
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 Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 12:09 am Post subject:
Re: Why aren't more universities doing this?
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On 8 Feb 2005 18:41:01 GMT, Bill Gunshannon <bill@cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
Bill,
I would be pleased to donate a PL/I license so your students can
see how a real programming language works and behaves.
Tom
| Quote: | In article <cuaqk6$qqm$1@naig.caltech.edu>,
David Mathog <mathog@caltech.edu> writes:
bob@instantwhip.com wrote:
http://www.shannonknowshpc.com/stories.php?story=05/02/07/1720316
That's an easy one. Because porting open source software
to a moribund OS is not a particularly worthy goal and nobody
is going to give you very much credit for having done it.
Not exactly true. It would have to be examined like any other
project, but I was successful in getting 4 porting projects
approved by our faculty committee a few years ago. I asked one
of the professors who has visited a number of other schools as
a member of an ABET Acreditation Team and he assures me that
about 50% of colleges with CS programs (a higher % for acredited
programs) have similar senior projects courses. The biggest
thing holding up projects like these is the lack of VMS systems
in academia. (As soon as the electricians get my new power in I
will have a couple of killer VAXen to make available to the
students again.) I look forward to trying to get some VMS porting
projects in the works again. The students are always looking
for something more meaningful than the typical doctor's office
Excel/Access billing system.
I used to do rather a lot of porting to OpenVMS and believe me,
my time is much better spent doing other things and just
running the code as is on Linux. When I work on code now it's
to make it faster or better, not just to get it to run in
the first place on a platform that nobody in academia
cares about or uses anymore.
It's usually a fight, but I still try to keep VMS at least
on the horizon here. I have one professor who teaches a
course that still includes some COBOL programming and as
long as that persists I will, at least, have enough support
to keep VMS running in the department. It is up to me to try
and expand that usage and once I have a couple machines with
real performance I will get back to work on that. (Must sound
funny having the groups biggest Unix defender wrtitting about
pushing VMS in academia!! :-)
bill
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Tom Linden
*nix forums Guru
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 841
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| Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 12:13 am Post subject:
Re: Why aren't more universities doing this?
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On 8 Feb 2005 20:35:39 GMT, Bill Gunshannon <bill@cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
| Quote: | In article <YsmdnTP2Faolj5TfRVn-qQ@igs.net>,
"John Smith" <a@nonymous.com> writes:
Bill Gunshannon wrote:
In article <cuaqk6$qqm$1@naig.caltech.edu>,
David Mathog <mathog@caltech.edu> writes:
bob@instantwhip.com wrote:
http://www.shannonknowshpc.com/stories.php?story=05/02/07/1720316
That's an easy one. Because porting open source software
to a moribund OS is not a particularly worthy goal and nobody
is going to give you very much credit for having done it.
Not exactly true. It would have to be examined like any other
project, but I was successful in getting 4 porting projects
approved by our faculty committee a few years ago. I asked one
of the professors who has visited a number of other schools as
a member of an ABET Acreditation Team and he assures me that
about 50% of colleges with CS programs (a higher % for acredited
programs) have similar senior projects courses. The biggest
thing holding up projects like these is the lack of VMS systems
in academia. (As soon as the electricians get my new power in I
will have a couple of killer VAXen to make available to the
students again.) I look forward to trying to get some VMS porting
projects in the works again. The students are always looking
for something more meaningful than the typical doctor's office
Excel/Access billing system.
I used to do rather a lot of porting to OpenVMS and believe me,
my time is much better spent doing other things and just
running the code as is on Linux. When I work on code now it's
to make it faster or better, not just to get it to run in
the first place on a platform that nobody in academia
cares about or uses anymore.
It's usually a fight, but I still try to keep VMS at least
on the horizon here. I have one professor who teaches a
course that still includes some COBOL programming and as
long as that persists I will, at least, have enough support
to keep VMS running in the department. It is up to me to try
and expand that usage and once I have a couple machines with
real performance I will get back to work on that. (Must sound
funny having the groups biggest Unix defender wrtitting about
pushing VMS in academia!! :-)
Push HP to give you some 'current' technology, like an Alpha or one of
those
prototype IA64 boxes (they'll be making those until the pre-production
line
closes when Intel EOL's the cpu).
Actually, Compaq did give me an Alpha. A small one, but adequate.
That was in the days when they actually seemed interested. But
interest seemed to dry up about the time of the merger. I have
had limited contact since then, but it seems I am mostly back on
my own again.
Father: "So what did you do in CS class today, son?
Son: "I got to work some goofy fossilized computer Professor Bill still
has
hanging around the lab."
Father: "Really? Which one?"
Son: "Something called WAX or VAX, or something like that."
Father: "I used to program on those too."
Son: "Like I said, some fossil. Slow too."
So tell me, how would the average user writing program in a
high-level language (think under-grads here) even tell what
the architecture was? Why would he care? And I hardly expect
that the 4 processor machines I have are going to be slow
supporting only a small handful of students. At it's peak
it will have maybe 15 simultaneous users runnging the COBOL
Compiler. I think it will offer acceptable performance.
And anyway, they are hardly fossilized computers when compared to
the PDP-11/44's standing next to them. 
bill
Bill |
I would be pleased to provide you with a PL/I license so your students can
see
how a real sophisticated programming language works and behaves. Write me
offline
if you want a pak.
Tom
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Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ |
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Nessie
*nix forums beginner
Joined: 07 Feb 2005
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 5:50 am Post subject:
Re: Why aren't more universities doing this?
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Sorry to butt-in, but I spent 8 years programming mostly cobol on a VMS
system in the late 80's/early 90's, and another 9 years programming
cobol on IBM 3600's, DOS and MVS.
They may be slow, but boy are they development friendly
environments...give me a VAX to work with any day above an IBM...!!!
You can understand what it wants, instead of having to learn letter
commands like unix / AIX use.
Enough ranting, you get the point ! |
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