"MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 06/07/2018
03:32:20 PM:
What the heck tool were you using on Mainframe that made it easier
Dave? I have used both ISPF and CICS and would describe COBOL on
IBM i as a breeze compared with either. Heck not having to worry
about state is a blessing.
Well, I wrote my own screen designer on the mainframe (in CICS --
mostly written in COBOL, but some assembler) and it is better than
anything I have seen for either the mainframe or the IBM i. So, there's
that.
As for state... The mainframe CICS programming standard is that
you don't leave programs/transactions active while waiting for the user to
key things in on the screen because this ties up resources that could be
used elsewhere. You can make it conversational (as it is on the IBM i)
and therefore have no issue with state -- but, as I said, that is not
recommended.
So, for psuedo-conversational programming (as it's called), you
simply keep all the important stuff in your own communication area (which
is in-memory) and this maintains state. Of course, you can also keep
(hidden) things on the screen (as you can on the IBM i) but in the 3270
world this takes up screen real estate. So, not recommended. But, you
can keep all screen-type information in a temp storage queue so that it is
available across screen interactions, too.
I don't find state to be an issue between the mainframe and the
IBM i. Most of what I find harder about interactive programming on the
IBM i is all those DSPF keywords to learn (and get right) and having to
keep track of and set indicators to get screen field attributes to change
on the fly -- and then limited to only 99 indicators for such purposes.
Much easier (to me) in the 3270 world to just move the desired
attribute(s) to the screen fields right along with the data.
Sincerely,
Dave Clark
midrange.com
