Does Anybody Still Use CL?

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Does Anybody Still Use CL? **
I find it difficult how you can NOT use CL. We are a small group of mainframe Cobol developers, and use CL quite extensively. If you have programs, you have to have CL to invoke/call it. We're building a new data center, and will be migrating to a state-of-the-art I5 OS. So for my group, any future enhancements to CL will well be worth it. - Jim P. AS/400 Application Development Team Lead

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Does Anybody Still Use CL? **
There are a lot of original programs written in CL that are simply not worth the effort to convert. They do what they do and they do it very well. With the enhancements in RPG it's getting much easier to do things like file overrides in RPG but I still go back to the CL when I need to for consistencies sake if nothing else. I definitely see the point about younger developers not knowing CL though. I'm the oldest developer in our group at 39 and I'm the only one here who can write a command and am usually consulted by everyone else when they have to create or modify a CL. Even if they are consulting me on it though, they are still using CL.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Does Anybody Still Use CL? **
Not using CL implies more diligent error handling would need to be coded into the application. Now I'm not saying one should rely completely on CL programs for error handling. But some errors within RPGLE just can't be handled without canceling the program unless someone coded every line to have a error handler. Without a CL to fall back on, this may mean cancelling the job. Restarting a job may not be as practical as simply performing a retry on the call to the application.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Does Anybody Still Use CL? **
I really hate it when the cake is on the dinner table and I am expected to eat tasteless steamed vegetable. I know veggies are healthier but you know, cake is tastier. I can indeed master the API calls and do away with using CL altogether, or somewhat. But ... with CL aroud, when will I find time to make the transition? How can a bear learn to hunt food if the picknickers constantly feed them leftovers?

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Does Anybody Still Use CL? **
Some things are just easier in CL (i.e. work management). There is online help via F1 rather than going to InfoCenter - although I know you love it . It's easy to test. It's easy to prompt via F4 (try prompting an API). Error handling is seamless. It's a good scripting/programming language. And here is the problem. It doesn't excel in either scripting or programming. We have a number of HLLs available to programmers on iSeries so I think CL shouldn't excel in programming. But scripting.... YES it should beat REXX, Perl, PHP or any other scripting language. Enhancements are long overdue.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Does Anybody Still Use CL? **
I would say, I eat, sleep and breath CL for the last 15 years so frankly speaking to me, CL make its presence in OS400 very prominently. Almost all OS400 APIs has a CL wrapper for an OS CL commands. However, its enhancement is not complete yet. IBM need to come up more functionality in term of integration and portability to other programming languages. I'll wait for the day when CL will be a TRUE programming language (similar to RPGLE) so that I could update it in my CV.. I'm still looking for CL to be able to perform update, delete or write data record in files directly rather than just read only. Recent CL enhancements in V5R3 is a eye-opener to other non-CL developers. I hope this is just the begining and more to come in later release. CL is more than 20 years old but still running strong compare to PL/1, REXX in OS400.. Let see what IBM has to say about this..!

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Does Anybody Still Use CL? **
In response to "Do we still use CL"....Yes, most definately. I am in a COBOL shop and sometimes writing a short CL program to do a task is much easier. As for Updating and writing to files in CL programs we can do that to with the help of ASC's Sequel product(fantastic product). It allows us to do all of the SQL commands you would do in regular SQL and QM(ie. update, insert, delete, create query files). I mean this is really a great pair when used together, you can pass parameters to SEQUEL create your output in a number of different formats and then FTP, EMAIL all from within your CL program. I will be using CL as long as I am in an AS400 shop.

[dchristen]

** This thread discusses the article: Does Anybody Still Use CL? **
I haven’t coded a CL program since collage, 14+ years ago. If there isn't an API to do what I need, I use the QCapCmd API to run the appropriate CL Command. I mainly code applications but I spend 10-20% of my time, at work and at home, doing systems administration and have not needed to code a CL Pgm for either discipline. I see from the previous replies that I am in the minority, so I will accept that the improvement to CL’s structure etc… actually are helpful to others, rather than bemoan IBM using resources to improve CL, a dead end language IMO. Duane Christen

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Does Anybody Still Use CL? **
The last time I used GOTO was 26 years ago. I then stopped LEAVE, ITER etc. Now I dont even use MOVE. However there are people who demand that GOTOs and MOVE etc be included in /free, and some of them are recognized gurus. There would always be people who refuse to learn new tricks and insist that old tricks be upgraded. I am among one of them. I am too lazy to learn all the APIs and expect IBM to improve the CL.

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