On 13/12/2011 6:48 AM, John Gilmore wrote:
I was aware of the presence of ALLOCATE and FREE in the 'new' COBOL standard
This thread has wandered far from its initial topic, and perhaps it is
time to let it expire quietly. Frank likes variable-length tables. I
agree that self-defining tables like those achievable with the
ALLOCATE and REFER of PL/I are desirable, but linked lists are
essential; and until COBOL can do them it will not, in my view, have
any proper claim to be classified as an adult language: move-mode
processing schemes are juvenilia at their best.
There are examples in the LE manuals on how to process linked lists in
COBOL
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/zvm/v5r4/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.zos.r9.ceea200/cobbls.htm.
If the language supports pointers and memory management then you can
have linked lists.
I'm a rare bird in the z/OS sense in that I code in C++. I'm lucky
enough to have linked lists, sets, trees, vectors, queues, stacks, hash
tables - not to mention algorithms as part of the standard
library. And they have been implemented by experts with PHDs in computer
science (dinkumware). And I do trust them to implement top quality
libraries.
Without COBOL the mainframe is essentially dead as we know it. MAINFRAME
= COBOL.
Differences of this kind are one of the chief reasons why languages
continue to get bigger and bigger. As Justice Holmes put it long ago,
"If you like diamonds and I like rubies we have just three options:
battle, compromise, or a jeweler who has both"; and the jeweler who
has both is obviously the politic choice.
--jg
On 12/12/11, Frank Swarbrick<frank.swarbr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
ALLOCATE and FREE are part of the 2002 COBOL international standard (ISO/IEC
1989:2002); a standard which IBM has made no commitment to implement...
While certainly useful if you would like to build linked lists, I personally
would much prefer dynamic-length tables and dynamic-length "strings".
Frank
________________________________
From: John Gilmore<johnwgilmore0...@gmail.com>
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 1:26 PM
Subject: Re: Java apps have most flaws, Cobol is cleanest.
Automatic, LIFO dynamic storage IS readily available in PL/I in the
form of local storage. In my experience it is not much used because
misunderstood: people who attempted, uninstructed, to use it early on
were dismayed when they discovered that successive subroutine calls
did not leave it in its last-used state.
Based, non-LIFO dynamic storage that does persist in last-used state
is available in COBOL only via LE calls. (As I mentioned in another
post these services are easy to rename perspicuously.)
This situation may change. IBM would object, strongly and correctly,
to the notion that there is some sort of implicit promise embedded in
its choices, but it is interesting to note that among the keywords not
yet used in Enterprise COBOL but reserved for possible future use are
two,
ALLOCATE and FREE,
that are suggestive, at least to anyone who knows PL/I.
John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
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