The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I was in the mainframe worlds decades ago, and am aware of practices. But that question was posed to Katsunami, not you, so it's not clear why you answered it.
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Dennis

Sorry, read the quote wrong. My apologies.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The data is in a sealed silo, thousands of kilometers from where I am. I'd have to get a pass from God to get in. The mainframe world has security like Cheyenne Mountain used to have.

One of the banks I worked for in the 1970s had a data centre that looked like a wheat silo cluster. The silo-like structures housed the ancillary kit (MG sets, cooling towers etc) and a few offices. The car park was under the silos, the computers, disk farms etc were under the car park.

FWIW I read somewhere that Git has been ported Z/OS.

BR

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Load and source are separate in the mainframe world. it's a compiled world, not interactive.

The load was restored. But the now <bad> source was still in the source lib, as a "land mine" for the next person who changed the program. . .

I'm fully aware of the mainframe environment; SPROG for many year

And by load library I was referring to the PDS referenced in the JOBLIB or STEPLIB

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I'm fully aware of the mainframe environment; SPROG for many year

And by load library I was referring to the PDS referenced in the JOBLIB or STEPLIB

Restoring the load lib gets you by the problem, until somebody decides to add a change to the program. Then they take the existing source and add their changes to it. If the source still has the changes that were pulled out by using the old load (but not removed from the source), then those changes will get re-added again causing the same problem again. And that could be by somebody else, a year or two down the road. . . .

[PeterT]

However a recompilation of the program as a backout means is not strictly a backout of the change as you are on effect making another change. I'm certain iny time a backout of a failed change was a restoration not a recompilation

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Glad to hear you got is sorted, but since I assume the backup drive is on your premises, under your control, why did you feel the need to encrypt it? Under what circumstances might someone else get access to it and read it?

I just want the drives and the laptops unreadable by anyone else even if they are lost or stolen. Getting the drive stolen wouldn't happen too quickly with my main or second backup drives, but the off site backup drive is at my girlfriend's place. She basically only has a wooden front door with a very simple lock. If someone would want to, it'd be easy to watch until she's out, get into the house, and steal whatever you want.

And, I like all my computers set up the same, so they have the same hard drive setup (same sizes as well, where possible), and they're all encrypted. The only one to encrypt is my own desktop (which I've basically neglected to do, to be honest).

[crich70]

One thing that drives me up the wall at times is when Libre Office decides to freeze up rather than letting me enter data into a spreadsheet. I've had to basically close the file and reopen it just in order to be able to continue to input data (I use it to keep a record of my blood sugar tests, how much carb I eat and the size of Insulin dose I take). Not sure that any other spreadsheet would do better either. I keep it open and minimized when not using it.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

FWIW I read somewhere that Git has been ported Z/OS.

Well, Z/OS has a POSIX subsystem, so it ought to be doable.

Update: Yes, it was. See http://www.rocketsoftware.com/zos-open-source/tools

The not doable part may be getting mainframe COBOL programmers to use it.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by crich70

One thing that drives me up the wall at times is when Libre Office decides to freeze up rather than letting me enter data into a spreadsheet. I've had to basically close the file and reopen it just in order to be able to continue to input data (I use it to keep a record of my blood sugar tests, how much carb I eat and the size of Insulin dose I take). Not sure that any other spreadsheet would do better either. I keep it open and minimized when not using it.

What's the host platform? If you're on Windows, Excel will likely behave better. You might also look into Gnumeric as a different open source solution. (And if you are on Windows, what does Task Manager think is going on when Libre is frozen?)

I know people who prefer open source but use Excel because Libre Calc just falls over trying to run macros imported from Excel. If you are someone who lives in spreadsheets, Libre may be painful if you are doing sophisticated stuff.

How much number crunching are you doing? Keeping records to manage diabetes sounds like table management more than calculation, and something else might be a better tool. (There are several open source diabetes management tools designed to interface with things like insulin pumps to record usage, but that sounds like something not applicable to your requirements.)

How often do you use LO Calc during the day to record this data? It might help if you didn't leave it running minimized, and simply invoked it when needed.
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Dennis

[Blossom]

Why not Google Sheets? It's cloud base and it's what I use most because of that feature..

I've had Excel 2016 freeze up on me and run buggy same with Word 2016. Excel 2003 is solid for me. I've run both on Windows 10. I prefer 2003. It just works better for me. Theres also Open Office. I use portable versions of Libre and Open Office.

Sent from my XT1528

[Darqref]

The memory on my sound devices hate me.

On two separate sound systems, one on a component stereo system in my house, the other in my car, both have a memory system that is supposed to remember the radio stations that I set. Depending on time, feeling, and purpose, I may choose to listen to one of several different radio broadcast stations. I keep them in the memory slots, so I can easily change between them. Most of the time, I use three stations, one the largest local NPR affiliate, one a classical music station, and one a local news radio for when I need traffic fastest.

When power goes out (or a system unplugged, or the car battery dead or disconnected), there is supposed to be a local battery that holds the station presets. Invariably, instead, only two the the three are recalled - I have to manually re-set one of the stations. It mystifies me, since storing two of the three means some sort of memory was working, but it NEVER stores that third station.

It's hit me a couple of time this week, because I was painting and needed to unplug the stereo.....

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Why not Google Sheets? It's cloud base and it's what I use most because of that feature..

I use that too, and it's a good option if you have decent broadband.

I've had Excel 2016 freeze up on me and run buggy same with Word 2016. Excel 2003 is solid for me. I've run both on Windows 10. I prefer 2003. It just works better for me. Theres also Open Office. I use portable versions of Libre and Open Office.

Libre Office is a fork of Open Office, created after Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, the fate of OO was unclear, and a lot of people simply didn't trust Oracle.

Oracle eventually handed OO over to the Apache Foundation, but the damage was done as development had all shifted to the LO fork. (I believe OO is essentially dead now.) The code base hasn't diverged that much, so I doubt OO Calc will behave better than LO Calc.
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Dennis

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Why not Google Sheets? It's cloud base and it's what I use most because of that feature..

I've had Excel 2016 freeze up on me and run buggy same with Word 2016. Excel 2003 is solid for me. I've run both on Windows 10. I prefer 2003. It just works better for me. Theres also Open Office. I use portable versions of Libre and Open Office.

Sent from my XT1528

Does Google Sheet have all the features that Excel have? I know that LO doesn't have them (what I use, at least), and that is a no-go for me.

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Does Google Sheet have all the features that Excel have? I know that LO doesn't have them (what I use, at least), and that is a no-go for me.

Simple answer no though they keep adding features. I have a few excel sheets that I use for work and every few months I try to convert those sheets to check how much closer they are to match excel in the functionalities I need. So far not enough for me to go all in to google sheets though.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

Simple answer no though they keep adding features. I have a few excel sheets that I use for work and every few months I try to convert those sheets to check how much closer they are to match excel in the functionalities I need. So far not enough for me to go all in to google sheets though.

Ok, I was afraid of that, so Office it is (the same than Access).