> -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Comstock > Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 12:01 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Controlling COBOL DDs named SYSOUT
<snip> > > Huh? What have you got against judicious use of DISPLAY > so that you want to call the programmer an idiot? Judicious use is, barely, tolerable to me (see below). About all that I consider to be judicious is the writing of "statistics" such as "records read", "records deleted", "records updated", "new records written", although I've never noticed anybody actually using that information for anything. > > The OP said there were debugging / development time > DISPLAY statements left behind in code that should > have been removed before moving to production. Hal's > suggestion has solid merit (or is that Merritt) behind > it. > > DISPLAY is useful even in production, for certain > error detection / correction routines. And it's the > simplest way to generate HTML in a COBOL CGI. Of > course, you could require only calls to CEEMOUT or > CEEMSG for this kind of work, to enforce a no-DISPLAY > -in-production philosophy, but I don't think that's > an improvement. > > > > Kind regards, I guess after the 30th time that some nit-wit of a programmer (granted that they are few in number) used up 35% of my SPOOL, I got just a bit "down" on use of the DISPLAY verb. Especially when it was putting out "debugging" information about entering and exitting paragraphs, while reading a 30 million record master file. Anything that can be done with the DISPLAY can be done using the "normal" COBOL I/O verbs. So far as I am concerned, if it is a report, then use an FD! It's just that DISPLAY is so simple that, in my experience, it can be greatly abused. And if it is a report, I unsure which is more CPU efficient: an FD with a WRITE or a DISPLAY ... UPON SYSOUT. CPU costs hard dollars in my z/OS world. We are looking at a CPU upgrade which I will bet could be delayed if our application code was more efficient. Perhaps Strobe will help. If anybody will use it. We had Strobe in the past, but programmers only used it during a contest where they got bonuses for finding and fixing CPU hogs. Another reason why management wants off of the "z". Windows or Linux on Intel is basically licensed by processor, regardless of the "power" of that processor. System z and I think System i and System p also is licensed by "power". I have a number of "surly sysprog" buttons. Basically anything that wakes me up at 2 am about a "problem" that is not mine and that I cannot fix. These are the same people who direct their "reports" to our JCL archiver instead of our report distribution system because it is just so much easier. That is, they don't have to put in a report archive defination request. -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged and/or confidential. It is for intended addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited and could, in certain circumstances, be a criminal offense. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by reply and delete this message without copying or disclosing it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
