You are missing the point of the article, the articles are not proposing that Amazon et al. pay one more cent of tax on their income just collect and remit to the proper taxing authorities taxes that are legally owed by the purchaser of the goods. Would it increase the cost of doing business for e-commerce firms, yes but so what? The cost of doing business is part of any business plan. Amazon and its ilk are utilizing a legal loophole to get an unfair advantage over local merchants.
The handwriting is on the wall, there are too many states hurting for revenue. The current environment isn't fair, isn't sustainable, isn't long for this world.
You forget that hardware, eg computer memory was vastly more expensive when these programs were first written. The smallest IBM/360 (Model 20) had 4K of core memory and leased for $2,700/mo in 1965. Programmers had to optimize their program on a byte by byte basis. It's a vastly different world today than it was when COBOL was the only game in town.
I'm 51 years old and I've been a hard core technician for 30 years. I'm still at the top of my game but I do have to learn new technologies on a regular basis. It keeps me interested in the job. I've worked for many managers over my career and frankly I find that their attitude can be on the revolting side. Since I'm the boss, I'm smarter than you are,...It you want to join the dark side fine, but remember your roots.
z/OS includes features and facilities specifically designed to protect one program from affecting another, either intentionally or accidentally. The ability of an operating system to protect data and itself from unauthorized changes is called system integrity. Protecting the system involves a number of related disciplines:
* Maintenance of system integrity
* Use of the authorized programming facility
* Use of the resource access control facility (RACF),
* Changing system status
* Protecting low storage.
System integrity is defined as the ability of the system to protect itself against unauthorized user access to the extent that security controls cannot be compromised. That is, there is no way for an unauthorized program using any system interface to bypass store or fetch protection, bypass password checking, bypass RACF checking, or obtain control in an authorized state.
An authorized program in the system is one that runs in PSW key 0-7, in supervisor state, or is authorized through the authorized program facility (APF). An unauthorized program is a problem state program that runs in PSW key 8-F.
Even though I've worked on the mainframe platform for thirty years and I agree that zOS is lightyears ahead of ANY desktop operating system for secure computing I can go one better than zOS. Even though I don't work on the platform any more I had a year or so of training on OS/400 and a statement one of the instructors made just blew me away.
A security check is made during each instruction cycle. This check is performed without any additional system overhead.
Beat that VISTA!
True, but my manager hardly ever steps out of his office to talk to his people. His idea of his status report to his boss is to cut and paste what we send him into a giant mishmash of conflicting writing styles.
On the other hand one of my previous managers wanted everyone to write their status reports in a similar style so when he handed in his status report it looked like he actually had an understanding of what was going on. He didn't.
It's off topic and I know it will never happen but when a company has to resort to layoffs the entire management team, starting with the CEO, should be fired loosing any performance bonuses, termination pay,...
If the company has such issues that require massive layoffs then the managers failed and should be shown the door just like the other poor slobs.
I have box (2500) of unpunched 80 column punch cards that are as good as new after being in my possession for 15 years. As long as they don't get wet I expect that they would last for another 15-20 years without any problems.
Finding a card reader might be a problem however.
I'm 51 years old and have been a MVS, OS/390, z/OS systems programmer for going on 30 years now. Outside of the usual mainframe system administration duties I've picked up;
Unix - Unix System Services under MVS. BSD, Linux
Security and Encryption knowledge and experience
Disaster recovery requirements.
Networking at home and work.
In short the job that I'm doing now I couldn't have done just a few years ago and I expect the same will be true in the future.
Anyone who is still in the field for twenty or so years has to have the ability to adapt and grow.
A quote from the famous "Real programmers don't use Pascal" article written in 1983.
Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With a combination of large ground-based Fortran programs and small spacecraft-based assembly language programs, they are able to do incredible feats of navigation and improvisation-- hitting ten-kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years in space, repairing or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, and batteries. Allegedly, one Real Programmer managed to tuck a pattern matching program into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in a Voyager spacecraft that searched for, located, and photographed a new moon of Jupiter.
The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity assist trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory passes within 80 +/- 3 kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to trust a Pascal program (or Pascal programmer) for navigation to these tolerances.
If you have never read it, it's still a great read (at least for us old-timers).
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html
Whomever thinks self-regulation will ever work for the benefit of the public needs their head examined.
Does the phrase "Fox guarding the hen house" ring a bell to anyone?
Most major mainframe shops are running modern computers, nothing less than 3-5 years old. There are both parts galore, as well as complete processor complexes stored in warehouses that can be installed in a day or so. IBM also has current z10 processors that can be rolled in the door at a moments notice.
Even assuming that you are betting your business on an ancient mainframe and it dies, your applications can be moved to a new mainframe, running a current operating system with a greater than 99.99% chance that those applications will run the exact same as they did on the old mainframe.
Wrong. There are COBOL compilers for all(most) platforms.
Wrong. Any computer only executes (runs) machine instructions. Any language, COBOL, C/C++, Assembler, JAVA,... gets compiled into machine language before execution.
There are compilers for all languages on the mainframe.
Directly nothing, but it is the other side of the same coin. It is rational for a company to attempt to reduce the cost of doing business by hiring the cheapest labor possible.
However in the global race to the bottom the workers generally will suffer and the only winners will be those that already have most of the marbles.
Some companies find it cheaper to outsource the programming offshore with the expectation that the local staff will have to "fix" the program when it gets back to the USA.
It is still cheaper for companies to pay 10% of the prevailing wage oversees for 90% of the desired result and have a few highly paid talented programmers clean up the mess that they receive.
I have visions in my head of hundreds of programmers chained to their desks with taskmasters standing above them with whips shouting "Faster, code faster".
I'm a zOS systems programmer with almost 30 years experience. I simply can't move from one mainframe environment to another since there aren't too many of them left in the area that I live and I can't pickup and move my family at the drop of a hat . I can't start my own company since I don't happen to have a mainframe in my back pocket (nor several million dollars to create a proper mainframe environment). All in all however I'm not in too bad shape. My pay is good, working conditions are tolerable. I manage my own work and with few exceptions I decide what I want to do when I want to do it.
But my situation can change at anytime and I don't have the flexibility to move to another company down the street.
Take a look at the z/Architecture Principles of Operation manual on the IBM Website.
It is mainframe based but it gives a very good overview (in depth) of how modern computers work Any good teacher can use this information for either scaring the kids silly or getting them really interested in what computers really are about.
The chapters are;
Chapter 1, Introduction Chapter 2, Organization Chapter 3, Storage Chapter 4, Control Chapter 5, Program Execution Chapter 6, Interruptions Chapter 7, General Instructions Chapter 8, Decimal Instructions Chapter 9, Floating-Point Overview and Support Instructions Chapter 10, Control Instructions Chapter 11, Machine-Check Handling Chapter 12, Operator Facilities Chapter 13, I/O Overview Chapter 14, I/O Instructions Chapter 15, Basic I/O Functions Chapter 16, I/O Interruptions Chapter 17, I/O Support Functions Chapter 18, Hexadecimal-Floating-Point Instructions Chapter 19, Binary-Floating-Point Instructions Chapter 20, Decimal-Floating-Point Instructions Appendix A, Number Representation and Instruction Use Examples Appendix B, Lists of Instructions Appendix C, Condition-Code Settings
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I'll take a wild guess and say 100%.
You are missing the point of the article, the articles are not proposing that Amazon et al. pay one more cent of tax on their income just collect and remit to the proper taxing authorities taxes that are legally owed by the purchaser of the goods. Would it increase the cost of doing business for e-commerce firms, yes but so what? The cost of doing business is part of any business plan. Amazon and its ilk are utilizing a legal loophole to get an unfair advantage over local merchants.
The handwriting is on the wall, there are too many states hurting for revenue. The current environment isn't fair, isn't sustainable, isn't long for this world.
You forget that hardware, eg computer memory was vastly more expensive when these programs were first written. The smallest IBM/360 (Model 20) had 4K of core memory and leased for $2,700/mo in 1965. Programmers had to optimize their program on a byte by byte basis. It's a vastly different world today than it was when COBOL was the only game in town.
Damm, now I'm never going to get the millions of dollars I've been told to expect any day now.
Time Warner thanks your neighbor for their positive impact on its bottom line.
During the hyperinflation period in Germany in the 1930's people would burn money for heating and cooking since any alternate fuel was more expensive.
I'm 51 years old and I've been a hard core technician for 30 years. I'm still at the top of my game but I do have to learn new technologies on a regular basis. It keeps me interested in the job. I've worked for many managers over my career and frankly I find that their attitude can be on the revolting side. Since I'm the boss, I'm smarter than you are,...It you want to join the dark side fine, but remember your roots.
As for z/OS security;
z/OS includes features and facilities specifically designed to protect one program from affecting another, either intentionally or accidentally. The ability of an operating system to protect data and itself from unauthorized changes is called system integrity.
Protecting the system involves a number of related disciplines:
* Maintenance of system integrity
* Use of the authorized programming facility
* Use of the resource access control facility (RACF),
* Changing system status
* Protecting low storage.
System integrity is defined as the ability of the system to protect itself against unauthorized user access to the extent that security controls cannot be compromised. That is, there is no way for an unauthorized program using any system interface to bypass store or fetch protection, bypass password checking, bypass RACF checking, or obtain control in an authorized state.
An authorized program in the system is one that runs in PSW key 0-7, in supervisor state, or is authorized through the authorized program facility (APF). An unauthorized program is a problem state program that runs in PSW key 8-F.
Even though I've worked on the mainframe platform for thirty years and I agree that zOS is lightyears ahead of ANY desktop operating system for secure computing I can go one better than zOS. Even though I don't work on the platform any more I had a year or so of training on OS/400 and a statement one of the instructors made just blew me away. A security check is made during each instruction cycle. This check is performed without any additional system overhead. Beat that VISTA!
True, but my manager hardly ever steps out of his office to talk to his people. His idea of his status report to his boss is to cut and paste what we send him into a giant mishmash of conflicting writing styles. On the other hand one of my previous managers wanted everyone to write their status reports in a similar style so when he handed in his status report it looked like he actually had an understanding of what was going on. He didn't.
It's off topic and I know it will never happen but when a company has to resort to layoffs the entire management team, starting with the CEO, should be fired loosing any performance bonuses, termination pay,... If the company has such issues that require massive layoffs then the managers failed and should be shown the door just like the other poor slobs.
Yep, and its free also.
Without a doubt the best book to learn how real computers work. http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/dz9zr006.pdf Putting on asbestos under ware now.
I have box (2500) of unpunched 80 column punch cards that are as good as new after being in my possession for 15 years. As long as they don't get wet I expect that they would last for another 15-20 years without any problems. Finding a card reader might be a problem however.
I'm 51 years old and have been a MVS, OS/390, z/OS systems programmer for going on 30 years now. Outside of the usual mainframe system administration duties I've picked up; Unix - Unix System Services under MVS. BSD, Linux Security and Encryption knowledge and experience Disaster recovery requirements. Networking at home and work. In short the job that I'm doing now I couldn't have done just a few years ago and I expect the same will be true in the future. Anyone who is still in the field for twenty or so years has to have the ability to adapt and grow.
A quote from the famous "Real programmers don't use Pascal" article written in 1983. Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With a combination of large ground-based Fortran programs and small spacecraft-based assembly language programs, they are able to do incredible feats of navigation and improvisation-- hitting ten-kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years in space, repairing or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, and batteries. Allegedly, one Real Programmer managed to tuck a pattern matching program into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in a Voyager spacecraft that searched for, located, and photographed a new moon of Jupiter. The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity assist trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory passes within 80 +/- 3 kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to trust a Pascal program (or Pascal programmer) for navigation to these tolerances. If you have never read it, it's still a great read (at least for us old-timers). http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html
Whomever thinks self-regulation will ever work for the benefit of the public needs their head examined. Does the phrase "Fox guarding the hen house" ring a bell to anyone?
Most major mainframe shops are running modern computers, nothing less than 3-5 years old. There are both parts galore, as well as complete processor complexes stored in warehouses that can be installed in a day or so. IBM also has current z10 processors that can be rolled in the door at a moments notice.
Even assuming that you are betting your business on an ancient mainframe and it dies, your applications can be moved to a new mainframe, running a current operating system with a greater than 99.99% chance that those applications will run the exact same as they did on the old mainframe.
Wrong. There are COBOL compilers for all(most) platforms.
Wrong. Any computer only executes (runs) machine instructions. Any language, COBOL, C/C++, Assembler, JAVA, ... gets compiled into machine language before execution.
There are compilers for all languages on the mainframe.
Enterprise COBOL for z/OS Manuals http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/cobol/zos/
Directly nothing, but it is the other side of the same coin. It is rational for a company to attempt to reduce the cost of doing business by hiring the cheapest labor possible.
However in the global race to the bottom the workers generally will suffer and the only winners will be those that already have most of the marbles.
Yep. The same scene comes to my mind also.
Some companies find it cheaper to outsource the programming offshore with the expectation that the local staff will have to "fix" the program when it gets back to the USA.
It is still cheaper for companies to pay 10% of the prevailing wage oversees for 90% of the desired result and have a few highly paid talented programmers clean up the mess that they receive.
I have visions in my head of hundreds of programmers chained to their desks with taskmasters standing above them with whips shouting "Faster, code faster".
I'm a zOS systems programmer with almost 30 years experience. I simply can't move from one mainframe environment to another since there aren't too many of them left in the area that I live and I can't pickup and move my family at the drop of a hat . I can't start my own company since I don't happen to have a mainframe in my back pocket (nor several million dollars to create a proper mainframe environment). All in all however I'm not in too bad shape. My pay is good, working conditions are tolerable. I manage my own work and with few exceptions I decide what I want to do when I want to do it.
But my situation can change at anytime and I don't have the flexibility to move to another company down the street.
Take a look at the z/Architecture Principles of Operation manual on the IBM Website.
It is mainframe based but it gives a very good overview (in depth) of how modern computers work Any good teacher can use this information for either scaring the kids silly or getting them really interested in what computers really are about.
The chapters are;
Chapter 1, Introduction
Chapter 2, Organization
Chapter 3, Storage
Chapter 4, Control
Chapter 5, Program Execution
Chapter 6, Interruptions
Chapter 7, General Instructions
Chapter 8, Decimal Instructions
Chapter 9, Floating-Point Overview and Support Instructions
Chapter 10, Control Instructions
Chapter 11, Machine-Check Handling
Chapter 12, Operator Facilities
Chapter 13, I/O Overview
Chapter 14, I/O Instructions
Chapter 15, Basic I/O Functions
Chapter 16, I/O Interruptions
Chapter 17, I/O Support Functions
Chapter 18, Hexadecimal-Floating-Point Instructions
Chapter 19, Binary-Floating-Point Instructions
Chapter 20, Decimal-Floating-Point Instructions
Appendix A, Number Representation and Instruction Use Examples
Appendix B, Lists of Instructions
Appendix C, Condition-Code Settings