Re: COBOL Compiler for Windows


"Michael Wojcik" <mwojcik@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:fv7fch02im3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Howard Brazee wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:11:55 -0400, Graham Hobbs <ghobbs@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Do the MS and Fujitsu compilers support VSAM KSDS files?

Do you mean "MF and Fujitsu compilers"? Microsoft hasn't sold a COBOL
compiler since the mid-1990s, if memory serves, and even then it was a
rebadged Micro Focus compiler.

What about
DB2 access, CICS access, guess I'm asking EXEC CICS suchandsuch and
EXEC SQL suchandsuch.

Huh? It looks as though you want an IBM mainframe compiler, not a
Windows compiler. Or maybe you want terminal software to allow you
to run TSO/SPF on your mainframe.

Or maybe he wants a mainframe emulation environment, which would let him
run programs with EXEC CICS and EXEC SQL macros. We do sell such a
product, after all (a few of 'em, actually).

It's not free, though. It's not even cheap. Emulating the mainframe
operating environment is not trivial.

Sure it is.

But the people who want it are used to paying through the nose so why
disappoint them?

One day the mainframe world will wake up to the fact that they have a
choice. There WAS a time when mainframe hardware was the only game in town
and vendors (both hardware and software) could charge anything they liked.

We paid $300,000 for an IBM 360-30 that had a fraction of the processing
power that the machine I'm writing this on has.

(I did NOT pay $300,000 for this Notebook...:-))

EVERYTHING in the mainframe environment was overpriced, even the manuals...

There was no choice. You want/need computer capability...cough up.

It is ingrained into the mainframe pysche; a living legacy to the Watson
philosophy right up to this day.

I've done it myself... written mainframe software over a few weeks and
charged tens of thousands for it. The same stuff on a PC workstation would
sell for a few hundred.

The world is voting with its feet, they won't buy software at grossly
inflated prices. The only people who will do so are mainframers, and they
are a dying breed.

Why would a small developer pay several thousand for a .NET COBOL
environment, when he can get C# or Java for free (and they are actually many
times more powerful)? Only because he knows COBOL and has an investment in
it.

Given he can leverage his current investment by using Interop services in
the .NET environment, then the only choice he has to make is whether he
would rather pay the money and stay with a language that's going nowhere
(can't even produce a credible or viable standard), or incur the hassle and
learning curve of Java/C#.

For me, I was gratified to find that learning both Java and C# was nowhere
near as difficult as learning OO COBOL...

I believe it is only a matter of time before larger businesses make the move
also. Or divest themselves of in-house COBOL IT altogether and simply
outsource the service.

Both the Fujitsu and MicroFocus offerings for .NET COBOL are excellent
products (albeit, both overpriced), but it's like producing an excellent
horse, just as the Model T starts rolling off the assembly line.

Given that the car costs much less than the horse and requires no grooming
or cleaning up after, surely it's a no-brainer which one to go for?

Judging by the ads for Developers on JobServe and Seek, it looks like the
car has a future.



For the truly ambitious, there's the free Hercules mainframe emulator, on
which you can install the public-domain MVS 3.8 and its compiler pack,
which includes an ancient IBM COBOL compiler. (Apparently someone has now
hacked that to even support VSAM files. Luxury!) But I don't believe
there's any free emulator for CICS available.

If the OP can do without CICS, and this is for personal (non-commercial)
use, there's the academic version of MF COBOL: Net Express Personal
Edition, which is a free (big) download or $50 for media in a box.[1] It
includes Open ESQL ("EXEC SQL") support.


[1] http://microfocus.com/Resources/Communities/Academic/shop/index.asp


--
Michael Wojcik
Micro Focus

Gee, Michael, guess you forgot to mention the runtime fees...?

Or have they been removed?

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Micro Focus and "dialects"
    ... This following is my response speaking primarily from an IBM mainframe ... COBOL dialects and standards through a number of compiler options and ... Within each choice (eg. Enterprise COBOL ... > directives do impact a FEW syntax/semantic issues. ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: SHARE Session 8194: z390 and zcobol Portable Mainframe COBOL Compiler written in structured macr
    ... zcobol portable mainframe COBOL compiler which is written in z390 structured ...
    (bit.listserv.ibm-main)
  • Re: COBOL Compiler for Windows
    ... Getting a free or cheap COBOL compiler for Windows that supports IBM ... They no longer use Flex-ES "pc" for mainframe emulation, ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Is there a mainframe skills shortage?
    ... I agree that much, if not most, activity is in replacing the mainframe OS ... in a large transaction/database environment. ... I don't think it is wrong for educational institutions to NOT teach COBOL ... requirements than programmers. ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: COBOL: Its Everywhere... but going Nowhere....
    ... For Windows "OO COBOL compilers have been ... OO environment. ... VB.NET), it doesn't buy me anything (apart from an expensive compiler, when ... Some years back some of the vendors who were vulnerable to the demise of COBOL ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)