Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site eosp1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!eosp1!lincoln
From: lincoln@eosp1.UUCP (Dick Lincoln)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: IBM "Single Level Store" / Re: Why Not Virtual Files?
Message-ID: <835@eosp1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Apr-84 13:42:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: eosp1.835
Posted: Mon Apr 30 13:42:45 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 1-May-84 07:39:21 EDT
References: <333@oliveb.UUCP> <3179@fortune.UUCP>, <6810@umcp-cs.UUCP> <19456@wivax.UUCP>
Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton, NJ
Lines: 18

> Yeah, when I heard that S/38's biggest programming language was
> RPG-II, I began to wonder whether all this fancy underlying
> architecture was worth the trouble.

By now they're all using RPG-III, and you should take a look before you
knock it.  RPG-III bears almost no resemblance to the original IBM
"rippage" that was so correctly ridiculed.  You can do just about
everything in RPG-III that you can in C.  COBOL has also long been a
supported System-38 product, although I'm no fan of "cobolty-wobbilty".

Although IBM wouldn'T tell anyone this, the *real* reason for the fancy
"capabilities" System 38 architecture was for IBM, so they could afford
to develop tons of software for the 38 in a protective and properly
diagnostic environment.  Compared with its competition, it really does
have a mass of direct vendor-supplied software that works.  It's also
one of the few systems you really can learn without manuals (self
programming aside) once you learn how to log on and get the first Help
menu.