[Interest] Interest Digest, Vol 87, Issue 32

[Roland Hughes]

On 12/24/2018 4:00 AM, Waitman Gobble wrote:
> Looks like it ships with "compaq c compiler". Which is probably out of date.
>
> But some effort to use llvm/clang or maybe it's working? Looks like theres a 'new' version of OpenVMS coming Q1 2019. I am guessing their customers are enterprise corps using legacy 1970s software and databases? I have a friend who made a fortune doing COBOL consulting, because there are still alot of legacy apps in production. And all the COBOL programmers are like 90. Lol.
>
> Not sure who would want to deploy a new app on OpenVMS / COBOL. But maybe i am just /*ignorant*/

Oh, the applications and systems are much newer than that. A former 
client of mine has just started on a 3+ year project developing a shiny 
new system. If they hadn't developed a fascination with paying illegal 
alien wages I would be on that project now. Guess I will wait until this 
"priced right" developer fails like the last one did. They "can't 
afford" to pay what a qualified developer costs, but they can afford 
multiple years of abject failure. The first one strung it out for two 
years . . . Keller MBA logic.

Not that it matters, but that application is written in C/C++. They have 
quite a few systems in quite a few languages. One core system in VAX BASIC.

Amazon.com wasn't around in the 1970s yet they rely on OpenVMS to run a 
major part of the business.

Some customers are enterprise corps. Many others are small businesses. 
The two major vendors of Credit Union software with the largest 
installed base both run on OpenVMS so, if you are in a city/town large 
enough to have a Credit Union, odds are it is running OpenVMS. If you 
don't live far from a nuclear power plant, same thing. Used to be the 
same situation with both paper and steel mills world wide, not certain now.

It's a balancing of risk. There maybe hundreds of thousands of tiny 
embedded systems running Linux (possibly with a Qt application) 
interfacing with one specific thing, but, they all communicate with a 
trusted control platform which has up-times measured in decades. Irish 
Rail had an OpenVMS system running 24x7 for 18 years controlling 
everything. The only reason it was rebooted was for Y2K testing.

Qt is now feeling some of the same pressure. For certain there is a 
large segment of developers focusing on phone apps with a life span 
measured in months, but, Qt is increasingly being used in medical 
devices where the lifespan (and need for support) exceeds a decade. One 
system (don't know which one it is) still operates on OS/2 using Qt 3. 
Every year or two someone reaches out about possibly working on the project.

-- 
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630) 205-1593

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