>>Meanwhile, COBOL customers are beating us up about XML validation, >>XMLSS, Unicode, useability features and many other things besides >>AMODE 64 COBOL. We have to do it all right? > >Why does COBOL need XML handling? Is it generating in line code as >opposed to setting up calls as is the case for CICS and SQL? I would >agree that getting Unicode, the usages in the 2002 standard (with the >floating point being IEEE leaving COMP-1 and COMP-2 for hex floating >point) and other things useful for inter-operability is more >important.
If you knew IBM COBOL users today, you would not be asking this question. My first reaction was "Are you kidding me?" but then I realized that you probably have not been to SHARE COBOL sessions or have direct access to COBOL customer feedback like I do, so here you go. Users need to process XML documents in COBOL because they process all of their data with COBOL, that is the language of most z/OS installations. XML features of COBOL have been the most quickly adopted new features of COBOL in my 25 years of IBM COBOL development. We shipped AMODE 31 in 1984, Intrinsic Functions in 1991, OO in 1995, but many users are still running below the line, don't use built-in functions, never tried OO, and are not even using EVALUATE or END-IF. On the other hand, just a few weeks after we shipped XML PARSE support (yes, XML parsing done directly by the COBOL object program) we had customers telling us "This is great, when can I do a validating parse against a DTD?". The month after we shipped XML GENERATE, we had similar requests for more function. There are thousands of z/OS COBOL programs producing and processing XML documents today! We can't keep up with demand. On the other hand, we know that we need to do AMODE 64 COBOL someday, but not one customer has asked IBM COBOL development to do it yet. Cheers, TomR >> COBOL is the Language of the Future! << ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
