Re: Defining each paragraph as a SECTION

1) Is there any advantages or disadvantages to defining each paragraph as a SECTION in ILE or OPM?

No. It shouldn't make any difference. Sections in the procedure division are really a hangover from older versions of COBOL and IMHO serve no useful purpose today.

2) Will it cause page thrashing or is that a thing of the past?

No - and to the best of my knowledge (which goes back to R5 of S/38 through the current version of ILE COBOL) it has never been. It may be an issue on some platforms, but neither OPM COBOL nor ILE COBOL are structured in a way that would result in that. Again this probably relates to other systems where memory paging was by organized section. I know I worked on one such system but can't recall what it was.

3) Also, the shop I'm working in now has avoided using ILE too much because of performance issues. Could this be part of it?

As I've noted there is nothing to be "part of". The use of sections is largely historic and probably the result of some of the code having been migrated from another platform.

So the answer is No - because it never was a problem. Other than under exceptional circumstances ILE COBOL performs as well as or better than OPM COBOL. Most likely the shop tried to introduce ILE COBOL in an ad-hoc manner without understanding the ramifications - and that can cause performance issues due to the constant construction and destruction of the Run Unit. It does n to need to be a problem but you do need to understand the issues and adapt accordingly.

So to summarize - most of what your shop seems to be concerned about are non-issues and have never been issues on this platform.

If you can gather some examples of where performance issues were encountered we can take a look at the root causes.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On Aug 26, 2019, at 6:08 PM, Basil Zangare via COBOL400-L <cobol400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Is there any advantages or disadvantages to defining each paragraph as a SECTION in ILE or OPM? I see this practice once in awhile and not sure why it's used. Will it cause page thrashing or is that a thing of the past? Also, the shop I'm working in now has avoided using ILE too much because of performance issues. Could this be part of it?
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