Paul Gilmartin wrote:
The tragedy is that in 40 years no one undertook to fix it.
-- gil
I did fix it. In 1969 (40 years ago), there was a prototype of a JCL
replacement language called Jol. By 1973, it was re-written in
Assembler, and ran in 60K, just like the then JCL processor.
The real tragedy for users and the Z Series itself is that so few people
know it. And that IBM haven't supported it.
_______________
The language solves many of the problems that have been mentioned in
this newsgroup. It is totally free-form, has full symbolic variable
processing (testing, replacing, etc), a superb macro system, IF
statements, symbolic parameter replacements in "card files" - and much,
much more.
There is, for example, a Copy command that will copy various types of
files (SEQ, PDS, VSAM etc) and call in the appropriate IBM or other
utility to do the copy.
You can make a 3270 style "panel" using a simple Panel instruction. It
can create Menubars and Pulldown lists, similar to Windows or Linux
Guis. You can see an example of this here:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~clementclarke/oscar_jol_desc.html
A list of most of Jol supplied instructions can be found here:
http://alturl.com/6xqh
or: http://members.iinet.net.au/~clementclarke/JolWebManuals/Jol
Instructions Overview.html
You can click on the links to see the details of each instruction.
Jol also has a Network and Scheduling facility that allows you to submit
dependent jobs in a particular sequence, and on certain days using
JES2. The Manual can be viewed online here:
http://alturl.com/ph9f
or:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~clementclarke/JolWebManuals/SHD_Contents.html
and the PDF version can be downloaded here: http://alturl.com/u88c
or here:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~clementclarke/Jol_Scheduling_and_Networking_Guide.pdf
Additionally, it has a data base of data sets. You can specify
attributes for data sets and store all the information about in the data
base and Jol will extract the information required when creating New
data sets. This can be used to centralise all data set allocations to
one person, or department.
Versions of Jol: There is an Assembler version that runs on the
Mainframe, and a "C" one that runs on Windows, OS/2 and soon Linux. The
"C" version will run as a shell on it's native system, or it can produce
pseudo JCL to run on Z/OS style systems. A VSE version is awaiting testing.
Further Documentation: You can view the Jol Reference Guide online here:
http://alturl.com/6g6x
or you can download the PDF version here: http://alturl.com/u2x7
You can download the Concepts and Facilities Manual PDF here:
http://alturl.com/ehar
or:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~clementclarke/Jol_Concepts_And_Facilities.pdf
There is more documentation, for example Installation Guide, a full
General Information Manual, and more.
However, the above will give you sufficient to see what Jol is, and how
useful it can be to your organisations.
Some points of interest will probably be the description of the
Preprocessing Facilities here:
"http://members.iinet.net.au/~clementclarke/JolWebManuals/GDE_Compile
Time Facilities.html"
and Card Files (with Symbolic replacement):
http://members.iinet.net.au/~clementclarke/JolWebManuals/INS_DclCardImage.html
and Macros here:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~clementclarke/JolWebManuals/GDE_Macros.html
and http://members.iinet.net.au/~clementclarke/JolWebManuals/INS_Macro.html
How does it get any better than this?
Clement Clarke, Melbourne, Australia
Tel +61401054155
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