Actually, the lack of a metalanguage is the norm except for assemblers; PL/I is an exception in that regard. Ada, Go, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, Raku (Perl 6), Rust, etc., lack metalanguages.
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Charles Mills [charl...@mcn.org] Sent: Monday, April 5, 2021 11:15 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Assembler Language Programming for IBM System z Servers The literal answer to your question is COPY. Assembler COPY is completely the analog of COBOL COPY. Assembler COPY is less powerful than COBOL COPY: there is no COPY REPLACING in assembler. OTOH, Assembler has macros, which are like COPY but much, much more powerful. I am going to go out on a limb -- someone will surely correct me -- and say that COBOL is unique or at least atypical among modern "powerful" programming languages in that it has no real preprocessor language. There is no "meta" programming (to speak of) in COBOL. No real way to "dynamically construct" a program at compile time. Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Warren Brown Sent: Monday, April 5, 2021 7:22 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Assembler Language Programming for IBM System z Servers Hello, I've been away for a while. What is the assembly language equivalent for a COBOL copybook? Thanks, Warren On Monday, March 29, 2021, 11:08:43 AM EDT, Wendell Lovewell <000001e9c0ee0673-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu> wrote: Hello all. Does anyone know if Dr Ehrman's excellent assembler book could be updated for the new instructions released since 2015? Or, at least refreshed with current standards for PDF-page generation standards? What I mean is, it would really be helpful if: a) The pages in the Table of Contents were hyperlinks to the actual pages referenced, and b) The page numbers in the TOC matched the page numbers in the PDF file. For example, "MVCLE" is listed in the TOC on page 411. But if you alt-g to go to the 411th page in the PDF, you end up on the page displaying "373" at the bottom. More recent manuals "document" page numbers match the "pdf" page numbers. But as best I can tell Dr. Ehrman's book hasn't been updated to reflect this. Is there any chance someone from IBM is reading this & can do something about this? Please? (I know this might make more sense to post on the Assembler list, but I'm guessing it's more likely to be seen here.) TIA, Wendell ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
