On 12/12/2008, at 3:04 AM, McKown, John wrote:
OOPs, on the compiler, I meant to say "former", not "latter". I.e. I
hope they are separately licensed. We are 95%+ COBOL. Most of the rest
is CA-Easytrieve. I think CA has a i version of that, but I don't know
if that is in the proposal.
I've seen enough partially correct answers to this to step in.
You get the CL compiler (both OPM and ILE), Rexx, the UIM compiler,
and the DDS compilers (CRTPF, CRTLF, CRTPRTF, CRTDSPF) with the
operating system. You also get QM Query and QM Form compilers. You do
not need a compiler licence for any of these. You do need some way to
enter the source code into a source member. Usually people licence
the host development tools which includes Source Entry Utility (SEU--
which you already know looks like ISPF but is a less powerful) or the
client development tools (used to be WDSc but now one of the Rational
tool sets). You can use the OS command EDTF to enter source but
that's painful for anything other than emergency use. You could use
any PC editor and FTP the source to the host for compilation. Again
painful--primarily because you lose the advantage of command
prompting supported by the development tool set editors.
IBM used to bundle all the HLL compilers and the development tools in
one package but now they've spilt them into three separate bundles.
1) Contains OPM (or so-called heritage) compilers. This is RPG/400
and COBOL (I think this also includes the S/36 and S/38 compatible
compilers).
2) Contains ILE compilers. This is RPG IV, COBOL, C, and C++.
3) Contains the host development tools. This is SEU, SDA, RLU, DFU.
You are unlikely to need bundle 1. You will need bundle 2 and you
should be able to convert your mainframe COBOL to ILE COBOL fairly
easily. Screen handling is likely the biggest hurdle. If you are
using CICS there is a chargeable iOS version available.
If you ever do need to compile OPM RPG there is a CVTRPGSRC command
that will reformat RPG into RPG IV so it will run through the ILE
compiler.
Note that basic access to DFU is supplied as part of the OS via the
UPDDTA command so you can do quick and dirty file updates if necessary.
CL is a bit like JCL on steroids. You can use CL in job streams
similar to JCL but you can also compile CL into programs and perform
file I/O but there are restrictions on what is supported.
If you use SQL in your COBOL programs (highly likely) then you will
need the SQL Development Kit. This includes the SQL pre-compilers for
the various HLLs and a prompted interface for Query Manager. This is
a chargeable component but is often included in various pricing options.
If you're not using SQL you can convert your VSAM files into
externally-described database files on iOS and process those using
file definitions in COBOL. You could just dump the data into suitably
sized (i.e. record length) flat files too but you'll lose out on the
advantages of externally-described files.
I was told the RPG could likely replace Easytrieve, but everytime I
look at RPG, my stomach starts to burble.
This is because you are looking at mainframe RPG which is essentially
RPG II. It's ugly but it was ugly on every platform. ILE RPG is RPG
IV which is a major improvement to the language. Other than the name,
the cycle (if you choose to use it), Op-codes, and some minor
behaviours there is little commonality between RPG II and RPG IV. RPG
IV is a modern language easily the equal of COBOL and I could place a
case for it being a better programming language than COBOL--in fact I
could place a case for it being better than ANY other language for
business applications.
Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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