Talk:Batch processing

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Is batch processing not when the computer saves up a lot of jobs, and then does them all at one time, at the end ? Wb

I thought that too.

No, its still in practice for some special scenarios. Like if i have to do some bulk action on remote database through objects, i will never do it one by one. Instead i will prefer to make a batch of all tasks and will submit it to remote database through batch queue. Remote DB then will execute the batch as a whole, and hence saving a lot of time.203.122.33.12 (talk) 08:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain that in terms of jobs, not databases? I started programming in 1970-1972. I don't remember the term "batch" used in the context of jobs. JCL certainly does not support the concept. Sam Tomato (talk) 01:07, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

what about the execution speed of the batch jobs —Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.159.64.10 (talk) 11:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

merge?

I placed {{merge}} tags on this article and Job processing cycle. Job processing cycle has no references, so there may be nothing to merge, in which case it should be redirected. Geo Swan (talk) 23:54, 23 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I did, in the end, simply redirect the unreferenced abandoned article. Geo Swan (talk) 09:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Batch Performance Problem/Solution

A lot of this section is controversial. For example the suggestion that batch should complete in half the window. In mainframe batch circles at least this has never been "best practice", achieved, nor desirable. Similarly the "85% reduction" number is an overly aggressive one (and the point, arguably, need not be made). Martin Packer (talk) 10:08, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Manual intervation

This term is used in both the first and second sentences. Can anyone think of a synonym or another way of saying this so it isn't redundant? Peter Flass (talk) 16:58, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sequential Semantics

It came up in a discussion with a non-english speaker that while "batch files" and "batch jobs" in computing usually imply sequential operation on elements within the "batch", this is a semantic departure from the traditional culinary use of the term where "batch" is a group of things baked at the same time, which is more analogous to parallel computation. The initial intention of using "batch" was likely to indicate that punchcards were fed in the same tray or whatever, but even though even mainframes had parallelism, it ended up implying a sequential set of commands due to the cards being read in sequence and as the term was adopted by "batch files" which had very little in the way of parallel syntactical constructs, by contrast to actual programming languages took on that connotation. Just an interesting linguistic point that may be worth noting. (71.233.167.118 (talk) 06:11, 30 January 2016 (UTC))[reply]

I began IBM mainframe programming in high school in 1970 and in the US Army in 1972. I don't recall the term "batch" being used to refer to jobs in any significant way; I am unaware of any support of batches in JCL or anywhere else in MVT and MVS. The most common use of "batch" was in reference to transactions to update a master file. So in other words, updates were gathered and held in batches (transactions) until processed (perhaps from punch card input) against the master file. Sam Tomato (talk) 01:27, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relevance to IBM mainframe

The relevance of this to IBM mainframes is highly exaggerated. I am unaware of any support of batches by MVT and MVS. Definitely Jobs; MVT and its successors definitely support Jobs as fundamental components, but not batches of Jobs. In MVT and its successors, everything is what is described as "background"; everything. Anything interactive is (was) done by a job executing a specialized program, such as TSO, CICS or IMS.

The section "Later history (1960s onwards)" says "interactive computing such as via text-based computer terminal interfaces". Note that I was at the Bank of America in the late 1970s and I did all my programming using punch cards. It also says "later graphical user interfaces became common". In the 1980s and in 1990 all the (corporate) programmers at Lockheed used text-mode terminals, except there was a "user" group that supported IBM PC and Apple users in the company. I don't understand the relevance of "oxymoronic term batch job".

I see no reference indicating that the term "Batch processing" was commonly used in the past in the context of IBM mainframe computers. This article is referred to from an article about IBM operating systems and that is misleading. Sam Tomato (talk) 01:55, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Chronology

In addition to offline copying of jobs to and from tape, some early batch processing used SPOOL software to copy jobs to and from, e.g., tape, disk.

Multiprogramming operating systems did not always run jobs in the same order as their sequence in the input.

#Third-generation systems is anachronistic; multiprogramming was used on second generation computers, e.g., CDC 6600, GE 635, IBM 7030, RCA 3301. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 03:45, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]