cobol nested programs was: Is RPG 'DEAD"

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 3:08 PM, Jon Paris <Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 18-Jun-08, at 2:13 PM, rpg400-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

COBOL is inferior to RPG because you cant modularize your code with
parameters on a perform statement.

So? Totally irrelevant to the statement. COBOL is still around even
though it was declared dead years ago.

It is also totally untrue. Or rather it is only true as Steve has
chosen phrase the point. A READ in COBOL doesn't let you modularize
your code either - and that's only marginally less relevant than
saying PERFORM doesn't. Whatever Steve might think, for good or evil,
the lords of COBOL decided to extend the use of the CALL operations
for such tasks - not PERFORM. The equivalent in COBOL of a self-
contained RPG subprocedure (for example) is a nested program. And
that can have its own storage, use parms, etc. etc.

thanks for the tip. I am trying nested programs and they are working.
using the "global" phrase or clause or whatever on the FD spec allows
the file open in the main program to be shared with the nested
program. Modern COBOL is wordy as heck, but not bad.

-Steve