I'm not disagreeing with my colleague Jim Mulder -- or with John Gilmore for that matter. When I wrote "PDSEs and their impacts" I was referring to any/all impacts to meet the PDSE prerequisite for Enterprise COBOL 5.1 (as described in the Enterprise COBOL 5.1 documentation), including the ones enumerated in this thread. That's precisely why I recommend taking up IBM on the trial offer, to figure out the impacts in your environment. Most of them will probably be very welcome impacts, but maybe not all.
At the same time I think it's important to applaud the fact that IBM is moving COBOL forward, and the feedback I've been getting (and reading) about the new compiler is generally very positive. This is an excellent new compiler. I also love the fact that there's now a clear path to 64-bit COBOL with some welcome constraint relief in the meantime. The answer can't be "move forward IBM, but there can be no operational impacts whatsoever, ever." That's the wrong answer -- and most probably impossible anyway. I'm guessing that's the point John Gilmore was making. There has to be a balance. The balance is generally going to be fairly conservatively skewed in this mission-critical world we inhabit. But occasionally there will be some impacts (of varying but hopefully modest size) as progress is made. Let's figure out the best ways to work through them and to mitigate them, but let's keep forging ahead, too. By the way, while I don't think a 2013 PDSE prerequisite is too soon, here are some marketing efforts that are too soon (at least): http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/09/11/at_t_9_11.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/marriott-september-11-9_n_3907684.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples GMU VCT Architect Executive (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
