[Discuss] JCL in the past, and prognostications for the future

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2008-03-13 16:35-0700 DR wrote:

> Peter Scott wrote:
>> [...]Then there are languages like JCL 
>> that are obfuscated to begin with and were never fun :-)
>> 
> JCL is not a language it is a mechanism of torture!

These comments date you both, and I will be dated by my following comment as
well... :-)

Actually, I didn't mind JCL at the time because I knew nothing better, U of
Toronto spent a lot of effort helping us to use it, and with that help it
enabled me to get my thesis work done on IBM mainframes (which were
pitifully weak in the early 70's compared to what is available now even for
entry level PC's -- Moore's law operating for 35 years, and all that.)
Subsequently, I made the transition to Vax/VMS, Unix, and eventually Linux.
What helped me to make quick transitions in every case was to completely
immerse myself in the new paradigm, and never look back to the old paradigm
so I don't remember JCL at all except I believe "DD" featured large in the
"language".

Now to look forward, imagine what your personal computer will be like 35
years from now if Moore's law continues!  It is hard to imagine what all
that computer power could be used for, but reliable programming of that
powerful hardware will be essential.  Thus, let me also predict that by that
time the freedom of software will make so much economic sense from the
reliability point of view that the proprietary stuff will be a dim memory
with developers collectively scratching their head at that time wondering
what many of today's software companies could possibly have been thinking to
keep their source code licensed without freedom or perhaps even secret from
those who have the ability and interest to debug it.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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