Hi, Alan.
Thanks for taking the time to respond in an intelligent and thoughtful
manner to my rather "ranting-style" post. I appreciate it.
Alan Altmark wrote:
On Thursday, 05/03/2007 at 07:35 EST, Dave Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
No, no new pipelines stages.
That's simply b.s....please see Rob van der Heij's "What's New with CMS
Pipelines" presentation from the zExpo last month. There are at least 5
new Pipes stages that have been introduced and others are on the way.
You're right, Dave, I was using hyperbole to make a point (damn that
Chuckie): there are few new stages.
And how many time have we told you *not* to use big words like
"hyperbole" or sophisticated literary devices like similes and
metaphors; you're dealing with VM-ers here, after all......;-)
No, no new PL/I compiler. They are also
nothing to sneeze at considering those investments are being made at a
time when z/VM's value to IBM is its ability to compete in the virtual
server arena.
As soon as the market signals its willingness to substitute "CMS
application development" where it currently says "large scale
virtualization", then you will get dizzy as we swing the development
engine to focus on CMS. As long as it keeps selling new hardware.
But the market will not signal it's willingness until it sees that IBM
(the owner of CMS after all) is committed to the platform and that they
can be sure it will be around for awhile. Why invest time and money if
IBM is not willing to do so.....especially if the development community
knows that, e.g., there are versions of the new z/OS PL/I compilers that
are available for CMS, but IBM chooses not to release them for that
environment.....?
Well, it's been nigh on 40 years that CMS has been around. Seems like a
committment to me. CMS is here to stay. If all the people with z/OS get
z/VM and [re]discover CMS, who knows what might happen? "Never say die!"
While IBM Endicott may have been committed to CMS for 40 years, the rest
of IBM certainly has not followed suit. The decision to move away from
OfficeVison to Notes by IBM certainly did not give the VM base the warm
fuzzies, among the other things IBM has done over the years to, if not
kill BVM of explicitly, at least deemphasis it considerably. These
actions are noted by both the end users and the ISVs when they start
making new product development plans and allocating software budgets.
Your post gives the impression that we have a new PL/I compiler sitting
here on CMS that we don't want to ship. If such a thing exists, I've
never seen it or heard of it.
Not so much a case of IBM having a new version of PL/I for CMS just
sitting on a shelf somewhere and not being shipped as a case that the
PL/I compiler team uses CMS in it's development and a version for that
environment could be made available with very little additional effort.
Having such an updated PL/I compiler, with the many new features and
functions that have been introduced since the current compiler for VM
("PL/I for MVS and VM", 5688-235) was made available, would be a real
boon to the ISVs who use PL/I.
I think their grass is greener than mine....
The place CMS really shines is as a scripting tool. That was a major
motivation for the ldap client programs and is what is driving the demand
for snmp and ssh clients. Requirements that deal with this aspect of CMS
have a much better chance, I think, of being satisfied.
You're correct as far as you go with that statement, Alan....CMS is a
great scripting tool environment, which also makes it a great place do
to "real" application development and deployment as well.
Have a good weekend, too.
Alan Altmark
z/VM Development
IBM Endicott
--
DJ
V/Soft
