Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!bcm!svedberg!rick
From: rick@svedberg.bcm.tmc.edu (Richard H. Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Common Compilers for benchmarks (was: Re: benchmarking)
Summary: COBOL & arch.
Keywords: gcc silicon compilers RTL MIPS
Message-ID: <1347@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>
Date: 26 Nov 88 02:38:30 GMT
References: <7352@wright.mips.COM> <26627@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <609@quintus.UUCP> <1791@pembina.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@bcm.tmc.edu
Lines: 31

In article <1791@pembina.UUCP>, steve@obed.uucp (stephen Samuel) writes:
> 
> I don't know about ADA, but my feeling is that the people who really
> worry about COBOL are a bit more worried about moving their code over
> in one piece (I mean, who wants to wrestle with 4.5MB worth of 
>    ADD A TO B GIVING C.  <<- Don't forget the period!!!
> (guh!)
> Most of these people tend to stay on their nice big mainframes with
> hords of I/O bandwidth and a compiler they know and love.
> 
> Most of the people who are interested in the newer machines are either
> scientific types who tend to avoid COBOL or business people who believe
> that MIPS is all that it takes to make a good machine (snicker, snicker).
 

Your prejudices are showing. As a manager of technical support for a COBOL
shop, I can assure you that we DO look for architectual support for COBOL when
we are trying to acquire new hardware. A vendor that does provide support for
business DP is a plus. We also tend to ignore (and have for a LONG time) MIPS
as a standard of comparison in anything but the grossest measurement. WE
develop specific benchmarks for our applications when we are looking for a
vendor and hold them to it.





Richard H. Miller                 Email: rick@bcm.tmc.edu
Asst. Dir. for Technical Support  Voice: (713)799-4511
Baylor College of Medicine        US Mail: One Baylor Plaza, 302H
                                           Houston, Texas 77030