Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 20:21:03 -0800 (PST) From: Josef Grosch <jgrosch@superior.truenorth.org> To: bakul@plexuscom.com (Bakul Shah) Cc: jgrosch@sirius.com, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD beats SCO at its own game Message-ID: <199612210421.UAA03389@superior.truenorth.org> In-Reply-To: <199612201837.NAA23416@chai.plexuscom.com> from Bakul Shah at "Dec 20, 96 01:37:22 pm"
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>> The common wisdom has approximately 75% to 85% of all existing code is
>> written in COBOL. Most of it is 15 to 20 years old and in bad need of a
>> rewrite.
>
>This seems wrong. Or at least seems to need some qualification.
>
>If `most of' 75% of 85% of all existing code is 15 to 20 years old,
>then at most 62.5% of all existing code has been written in the
>last 15 to 20 years. Many many more people started writing code
>since DOS/Windows/Mac started becoming generally available and even
>the original IBM PC was introduced in 1980. 62.5% seems much too
>low. Heck, if you just add up the number of lines of code in
>all the microsoft products..... :-)
>
>BTW, I recall hearing similiar statistics 15+ years back! This
>seems more like an urban legend. Does anyone have a reference to
>any specific survey regarding number of lines of code written
>in different languages and their growth rates? Just curious.
>
>-- bakul
>
This does seem to be an urban legend, but I assure you it is not. The
magazines Datamation and Information Week have published articles on this
fact which is where I got the fact. There are a number points one needs to
keep in mind.
* Mainframe applications tend to be huge. There is an application
that runs on IBM mainframes called JEZ3. This program spools
jobs. I have been told by a ex-boss who worked on JEZ3 that it is
2.5 million lines of PL/1. My guess is that the entire source code
distribution of FreeBSD is under 2.5 million lines.
* Microsoft is in the business of producing desktop
applications. They have yet to produce a general purpose accounting
package or an inventory management system.
* The production of COBOL code did not grind to a stand still after
the introduction of the IBM-PC. In addition to maintenance and
enhancements to legacy systems, new code is still being
written. Scan through the jobs listing in your Sunday paper. Look
for "DB2", "CICS", "COBOL".
* Old applications do get retired. The life span of a mainframe
system is a lot longer then people in the PC world are used to. On
average, the life span is 15 to 20 years.
* Microsoft has, in part, grow wealthy selling only a handful of
programs; DOS, Windows, Visual C++, Word, etc. Their Modius
Operandi is to write a program and sell many copies. In the
mainframe world, each company either has an entire system written
in-house or an in-house major enhancement of a purchased
system. Sears, Montgomery Wards, International Harvester,
R. R. Donnelly, Allstate, all company s that I have contracted at
in Chicago, have an in-house written accounting package complete
with several dozen of programmers that spend their days baby sitting
this package. These packages are approximately 50 to 75 modules each
of which is 8,000 to 10,00 lines of COBOL code. This does not
include the inventory management system, warehousing, lose
prevention systems they have also custom written.
* IBM-PC did not really take off in the office until after the
introduction of Windows 3.0 in 1990 or 1991. Before that, the PC
was considered a Hobbist machine or a toy. The Mac has yet to make
significant inroads in the business world except in publishing. As
far as business is concerned, the Mac is a cult machine.
It seems incredible, but mainframe systems written in COBOL account for 75%
to 85% of all the code written since the mid 1950's. This fact is as true
today as it was 15 years ago when I also first heard it. Read a few copies
of Datamation and Information Week. IBM is still the largest software
company in the world, at least several times larger than Microsoft.
Josef
--
Josef Grosch | Laugh while you can, monkey boy ! | FreeBSD 2.1.6
jgrosch@sirius.com | - John Warfin - | UNIX for the masses
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