Re: gnubol: New bison Grammar available (long)

[Tim Josling <tej@melbpc.org.au>]

Using COBOL
***********

I don't think a two phase build is heroic. GCC itself builds in
at least 3 phases. I have a clear picture of how I would do it.

There are arguments either way though.

In favour of using COBOL:

- means we get to exercise the compiler ourselves (eat your own
dog meat) so it will be better tested and run better

- some people have expressed an interest in helping but do not
have C skills. 

Against:

- COBOL skilled people may be better deployed in testing
documenting or specifying

- maybe COBOL will be slower (assuming I use the gcc back end
there is no reason why this is the case except for decimal
numbers).

--->

This needs further thought. Certainly at a minimum I will have to
verify that there are cobol people who will actually write code,
early on. 


Efficiency
**********

Bill is there any way to get access to these comparisons? A did a
few simplictic benchmarks and I found the COBOL versions to be a
lot slower (both to compile and run), except on the mainframe
where they have the commercial instruction sets.

I don't want to start a war about cobol vs c, but it is important
to understand how good the existing cobol implementations are.

Good to see the list fire up again, now everyone has digested
Xmas lunch.

Regards,
Tim Josling

William M. Klein wrote:
> 
> Boy, do I disagree with this one !!!
> 
> To me, if you create an "open COBOL" - that COBOL people can NOT maintain and
> enhance, you might as well not do it.  Please, PLEASE, make as much of it in
> COBOL as possible.
> 
> (As far as "efficiency goes" - you ought to see some of the comparisons that
> Fujitsu, Micro Focus and IBM all have on "comparable" C programs when
> compared with same-function COBOL programs.  Not only is the COBOL (usually)
> MUCH more portable, it is quite often SIGNIFICANTLY better performing.)
>

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