[Info-vax] VMS Cobol - GnuCOBOL

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2023-02-25 13:00, Neil Rieck wrote:
> I first used COBOL on an HP-3000 more than 40-years ago and would like to remind everyone here that a COBOL compiler license was always very expensive. Heck, some companies like IBM hung their reputations on being able to run COBOL programs -AND- that their compilers produced the largest amount of executable binary which is backwards from the way we think today. IIRC, full ISAM support was an optional purchase on all PDP-11 operating systems from DEC, but then DEC decided to bundle it with VMS primarily to support the never released COBOL-80 standard (later appeared as COBOL-85).

ISAM support was standard on at least RSX and RSTS/E. RMS is a standard 
component. However, keywords like SORT in COBOL (it is a keyword, 
right?) requires SORT-11 which was standard on RSTS/E but was/is a 
separate layered product on RSX.

> comment: ISAM was important elsewhere on VMS including the fact that SYSUAF.DAT was indexed

Yeah, I don't think anything in RSTS/E or RSX on the system level used 
indexed files. VMS I know a little bit less, but since RMS integration 
went deeper in VMS, I'm not surprised if more things made use of it.

> I've only been working with Linux since 2016 but have been surprised about the quantity of good quality software in that eco-system which can be obtained for free. Anyone who has ever used gcc (gnu compiler collection) knows what I am typing about. This tool can generate C11 by the way.
> 
> (CAVEAT: the down side of opensource is that if you discover a bug, it may take years to get it fixed. In some instances you are better off fixing the problem yourself then submitting the solution to the authors. This has happened to me more times than one would think. This happened to me last week with the python SOAP library known as zeep)

That downside is also an upside. If you discover a bug you do not have 
to wait for the author to fix it. If it is urgent/important, you can fix 
it immediately yourself. I would say that is a *big* upside.

   Johnny