On Tue, 30 May 2017 12:53:29 -0500, John McKown wrote: >Around here, I have a "choice"(?) of either HLASM or COBOL. I don't >exactly _despise_ COBOL, but I will say that it is my least favorite >language when compared to either PL/I (favorite from college days) or C (a >"necessity" for easy UNIX programming).
COBOL, and other LE languages, use only standard linkage. The last I heard is that when COBOL begins to implement 64-bit support it will be through XPLINK-64 **only**. That is unfortunate, since the reason for XPLINK and XPLINK-64 was to provide a (slightly) faster linkage, but calling a program that requires standard linkage is **much** slower than just using standard linkage. And why does it matter, you may ask? Well, thanks for asking! What is it that COBOL programs are known for doing a lot of? I/O. And what kind of linkage do all of the access method modules use? Standard linkage. So every time your COBOL program issues a READ or WRITE, resulting in a GET or PUT call, it is standard linkage. Also, LE does not like LE-enabled standard linkage programs calling XPLINK programs or XPLINK programs calling LE-enabled standard linkage programs. I'm not clear on the mechanism, but I think that either of these requires that a new LE enclave be established. -- Tom Marchant
