Why does everyone assume that having MACLIB/MODGEN headers in C (or any other language) is only for systems-level code and exits? There are quite a few business application programs and customer-specific utility programs out here that can and do use what you may consider "system' API's to satisfy business application needs, not system coding needs. A simple example would be using JFCB (via an assembler subroutine today) to retrieve DSNAME to store in business application records. Certainly that assembler subroutine is probably more future-proof if recoded in Metal C, but it isn't part of the operating system or used as a system exit.
Don’t forget customer business application and utility program uses for these new versions of MACLIB/MODGEN data areas is all I am trying to say here. Peter -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of David Crayford Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 10:17 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: C headers in z/OS 2.4 On 2019-09-18 12:16 AM, Seymour J Metz wrote: > I'd rather have PL/I headers. I don't think IBM could justify doing any work for PL/I because there isn't a compelling requirement from customers or vendors to use PL/I for systems level code. On the other hand, Metal/C is taking off very quickly and is being used by vendors to write infrastructure and products. The company I work for only uses Metal/C for new code. Assembler and PL/X, while still very important, are legacy languages. Some products that were originally written in PL/X have started to use Metal/C for new code. The reason for this is obvious. Assembler and PL/X programmers are disappearing fast and attracting good young talent to replace them is difficult. We have some brilliant young engineers who are writing systems level code in C. Retaining them would be difficult if they had to work primarily in a legacy language. These guys all learn C at college so we just have to teach them z/OS. The smart ones pick it up quickly. We use Metal/C to write cross-memory servers, pc-ss, pc-cp, AR-mode stuff etc, etc. A lot of that code has been open sourced https://github.com/zowe/zowe-common-c > -- > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz > http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
