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Mainframe Migration Tools: What Works and What Fails

Every mainframe migration begins with someone searching for mainframe migration tools, and every vendor demonstration that follows looks remarkably convincing.

  • Discovery and analysis tools are most valuable for understanding complex mainframe environments.
  • Rehosting platforms are predictable but don't address COBOL codebase maintenance.

I labelled a dependency cycle "unknown" and called it rigour

I have spent a while arguing that checks need a third value: not every result is pass or fail, and folding "I could not determine this" into either one is how a suite starts lying.

  • The author proposes labeling dependency cycles as UNKNOWN instead of FAIL.
  • UNKNOWN indicates undetermined outcomes, while FAIL denotes actual failures.
  • Implementing this distinction prevents hiding failures and enables informed decisions.

My verifier accepted "13 of 13" by finding the number 13 once

Claims in my project are written as a pair: some count out of some total, each side backed by a cell in a generated table. A checker resolves the claim by finding the evidence for both numbers.

  • Checker resolved 13/13 by finding a single cell with number 13
  • Split pairs now require resolution over two distinct cells
  • Carried tables must either count or be declared out of scope explicitly

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