Programming Question

Earl Truss

Steven.M.Hunt wrote:

the government agency I work for (hint: we sent people to the Moon that one time) just turned off our last mainframe this month

I read about that. That was an IBM wasn't it? I used to work in Range Safety at the Cape on CDC Cyber 8xx-somethings. Are there any mainframes still use in the guv'ment any where?

Steven M Hunt

Yes we had IBMs, and we had ADABASE and NATURAL running on them. I'm not sure if there are any other agencies running them still, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are still out there. We haven't had any running here at the Cape for a while, but the last ones to get turned off were up in Huntsville. -- Steven

Lost User

Hey, Don't I know you? :) /invis;goto 10 500 516 500;slay auct

galumpa

Of course ;) and that is the script to slay the Auctioneer! hahaha I remember that!

cpkilekofp

I write .cmd files for use in SQL Server jobs, very useful for moving files back and forth and for calling bcp to force bulk imports into a process other than SQL Server (odd how that must work, but "the documentation says so so it must be true." ;)

ClockMeister

I don't write many but do occasionally still use it. -Max

ClockMeister

Dalek Dave wrote:

It's a shame Henry isn't here

He could tell us of his days poking holes in cards!

OK, since he's not here then I'll tell you. I used to write FORTRAN IV programs when at GA Tech back in 1976. We used IBM 029 and 026 keypunch units to build our deck which we then fed into a Cyber-74 for compile/run. The output would come out 10 to 30 minutes later on the express printer in the other room. Lather, rinse and repeat. -Max :)

Lauren Lilly

Now I feel old. My first job was purely punch cards. (1977 Burroughs minicomputers)

msvbdev

I'm 16 and I still like the command-line better than GUIs for a lot of things :) I don't know how to do some of the advanced shell programming things, but I do write .BATs for efficiency (for example, cding to very long directories to execute programs with complicated arguments)

Redsn0w10

Dalek, I'm only 14 and I use Batch files. I actually want to use MS-DOS in a virtual machine. Justin

fjancic

Automating repetitive tasks like running update sql scripts on several network instances or updating backups and ftp servers. They are flexible and quick to write and use.

SenseiJae

I occasionally will throw one down to automate a tedious task. Awesome skill to have.

48kGeneration

I do, and it is still very usefull. When things go "wrong", there is nothing like a command prompt and some .bat files to fix things fast. :) Long live the knowledge!

Yortw

I'm only 30ish, and I still write the occasional .bat file, but not many. Perhaps I'm just a younger dinosaur :laugh:

Randy Maxwell

Please add my vote for .BAT and .CMD files for at least these 2 reasons: 1) The runtime environment already exists with Windows, OS/2, DOS 2) Other team members can easily see what is going on and modify/improve the batch code Lots of samples found on web... #2 satisfies computer programming (communication) aspect: another human WILL read your code sometime and sharing early and publicly and in a way that allows more team members to empower themselves by modifying code to suit their needs seems like a better practice to me. Ex: Automated Testing; Original defect happened 1 of 4 tries manually. Root cause is somewhere in MS Win OS 64 bit networking layer behind a COM interface. So used .bat file to: run ipconfig and capture to .txt file run find to see if the expected IP address is present stop running batch file if IP not found else either Enable or Disable NIC device and reboot to try to reproduce again Since I could not fix the MS Win OS 64 bit networking code, I "hardened" the app code side with extra functionality checking even though COM interfaces reported S_OK and added a handler for recoverable errors. After incremental "hardening" the error rate went down to 1 of 1000 or more. Letting the batch file run automatically overnight and (later) over the weekend helped find even more subtle defects (places to harden) as well. Later on I used variations to do stress testing for app memory and handle leaks. Members of the Test team would also use/modify for tests. Hope this helps!

Peter Hawke

Actually I am 14 and I wrote one to start defraggler and CCleaner when my computer starts up. But I didn't know that the startup folder only starts exe files instead of BAT files. So know I just run it so I don't have to start both of them manually

Jwalant Natvarlal Soneji

Dalek Dave wrote:

Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files?

I am admitting that I write batch scripts... :(

Regards, Jwalant Natvarlal Soneji

KP Lee

Gee, I never poked a hole in a card, :-D I sat at a massive mixture of devices and desk top with a keyboard. I poked a key, the device made a crunching sound, the card slightly moved and I either repeated or poked something else to release the card punched full of holes, which was pushed into a stack of cards. At the University, I also sat at something the size of the old typewriters that spat out a ribbon of paper. Usually over 10 feet long, imagine the swearing when the ribbon ripped. I can't remember how long the boot tape was, it took about 5 minutes to load in the machine.

KP Lee

Personally, I count orbiting the moon as going to the moon. Granted, a lot less tricky than landing on it, but when was the last time you got on a bus that orbited the moon? :) Also, personally, I think 13 proved to be a VERY lucky number considering no-one died.

KP Lee

I'm an old fogy(sp?) and still use it. I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't know powershell, so it looks like dos to me. (Unless I'm clueless what the command is doing.) I've looked at (worked with, and when it doesn't work, modify) deployment scripts that heavily used dos.