I work at a company that has an IBM Mainframe for the main part of the business. I develop .NET applications that must interface with it and its done in 2 flavors, TCP/IP Sockets interfacing with COBOL and a middleware solution that interfaces with the COBOL to expose web services. Its arcane and extremely difficult to code for. Needless to say my error handling techniques are top notch! And we employ at least 40 COBOL programmers to maintain the mainframe. Good news is the system is converting out of the mainframe but it will take 2 years to do it.

- D. Schrenker ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research." - Albert Einstein