https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/nKfGUhdkO8U
Sent from my iPad > On 6 Jan 2022, at 21:23, David Crayford <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 7/1/22 9:03 am, Andrew Rowley wrote: >> On 7/01/2022 11:37 am, David Crayford wrote: >> >>>> Isn't JCL already a really good tool for what it does? >>> >>> Maybe, but it's a terribly designed language. I worked on AS/400 boxes in >>> the 90s and the Control Language (CL) was a legit Turing complete program >>> language. Why couldn't JCL have been the same? >>> >> >> I think it is a mistake to think of JCL as a program language. It is a >> language that defines what to run and the environment to run it in. So it is >> better compared to XML, JSON etc or even a makefile than e.g. shell scripts. > > > I understand that it's declarative. But it has logic such as IF/THEN. That is > no reason why it couldn't have been a scripting language like CL on AS/400. > > >> >> The syntax is poor, admittedly, I think as a result of having evolved over >> time rather than developing a strict definition at the start. It would >> probably be possible to write a new interpreter and replace JCL with XML or >> JSON without losing any functionality - if it is the syntax that bothers you. >> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
