Re: Cobol vs RPG vs Java vs C vs MI

[Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxx]

 >>  I had heard at one time that COBOL performs slightly better than RPG since
even though most programmers don't use the RPG cycle, the logic is still
embedded in every program and still executes.  I didn't think it could be turned
off.

COBOL will tend to perform better than RPG in two main areas. The first is in
batch processing where you effectively scream from one end of the file to the
other. Because COBOL's field definitions map directly to the buffer (whereas RPG
moves each field into its own storage area) data is only moved when it has to
be. The second is program to program calls (this is I think where the RPG cycle
comes in) COBOL calling COBOL is about as fast as you can get in OPM other than
MI to MI. Paul Conte published some test results on this several years ago.

You cannot 'turn off' the RPG cycle, but you can request NOMAIN in RPG IV
modules which avoids the generation of cycle code by not allowing any main line
logic. i.e. a NOMAIN module is a collection of callable routines.

Earlier someone commented about RPG having better date handling than COBOL. This
was true for a while, but if anything the COBOL support is now more flexible
than RPG and encompasses all that RPG can do.


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