You make a valid point but it comes down to IBM assigning resources
(money) to where they can add the most value to the customer. I would
argue that instead of publishing COBOL copybooks for control blocks a
better API would be callable services to provide the required
information, such as your JFCB example.
On 2019-09-18 10:22 PM, Farley, Peter x23353 wrote:
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 <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
David Crayford
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 10:17 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
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
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