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Some languages’ ownership transferred to CSY to speed development schedule

The Commercial Systems Division (CSY) quietly assumed ownership of some key compilers this summer, gaining a measure of control over improving languages for the system. The compilers are at the heart of thousands of HP 3000 programs around the world, from packaged applications such as the Amisys healthcare software and OpenSkies airline applications to in-house systems that companies have developed in COBOL II.

RISC-based HP 3000s rely heavily on compilers to deliver much of their performance to users. The next version of RISC for the 3000s, IA-64, will demand even more from the system’s compilers — part of the reason why the ownership shift took place.

C/iX, COBOL/iX, FORTRAN/77 and Pascal/iX are the languages that have been brought into the CSY fold from HP’s Computer Language Lab, according to CSY R&D lab section manager Jim Sartain. The language lab is a part of the Software Services Group (SSG), which is a part of HP’s Worldwide Support Organization.

Customers have been asking for major enhancements and minor improvements in the languages, and CSY’s move is designed to better respond to the customer requests.

Criticism of the state of 3000 compilers has been harshest among users of HP’s C/iX compiler. During a language roundtable this spring, customers said that HP’s C/iX was growing so obsolete that it soon wouldn’t even meet ANSI standards for the language.

“When you’ve got hardware of the future and languages of the past, you can’t really write applications of the future,” said Ken Paul of Adager during that roundtable. Paul then suggested it might be time for ownership of some 3000 languages to revert to CSY. Sartain replied at the time that “We’re not happy with the progress we’ve made. CSY will take responsibility for taking action on your concerns.”

Of the above languages, COBOL is in heaviest use among the customer base and in packaged applications, while FORTRAN is a key part of the MANMAN manufacturing suite. Pascal/iX has been used by HP to build many parts of the MPE/iX operating system, as well as by third parties for 3000 utilities. C is a leading choice of developers creating new packaged applications.

Sartain reports that although ownership of the above HP products has changed, there’s no overall change in HP’s directions for assigning resources to its languages. COBOL remains king, because customers have it enthroned in home-grown and packaged programs.

“There has been no change in HP's compiler strategy,” Sartain said. “COBOL continues to be the focus of our compiler efforts, because it is used by most HP 3000 customers. HP is working closely with SIGCOBOL to evolve HP 3000 COBOL.”

Sartain added that HP is participating in the COBOL 2000 standards committee “to help ensure the upcoming new COBOL standard meets HP 3000 customer needs.”

The increased emphasis on compilers in IA-64 prompted the shift of the products, Sartain explained.

“With HP’s commitment to move the HP 3000 to IA-64, our current focus in the HP 3000 language area will be moving the IA-64 compiler, linker, loader and debugger technology infrastructure to the MPE environment,” he said. “To more closely align compiler enhancement work with the rest of HP's MPE development efforts, several compiler products were transferred to CSY.”

Sartain said that CSY and SSG continue to work closely together to do product planning and marketing for the products.

“The current HP 3000 compiler R&D team, led by Randy Roten, continues to own R&D responsibility for these products,” Sartain said. “HP is adding additional development resources in the compiler area. Also, Randy and his team are working closely with other HP entities to leverage HP's overall compiler activities to the HP 3000.”

Sartain explained that HP is adding resources “to make rapid progress in moving HP 3000 compiler technologies forward. Customers will benefit when new compiler versions become available as a result.”

HP want it’s focus on these new compiler releases to produce higher performance application code and support new HP 3000 platforms such as IA-64. “A secondary benefit of new compilers being released is new language features may become available much sooner as a result,” Sartain added.

Patrick Muylaert of Virgin Express, an airline customer relatively new to the HP 3000 platform, said the COBOL on HP 3000s is working but could use improvement.

“I know that the HP COBOL abides by the letter of the standard from '85 and that there has been no official standard since then,” he said. “But there have been addendums, and there were at that time optional sections of the standard that nearly everyone else's COBOL has implemented — but not HP.”

“I am still a big fan of COBOL, but don’t tell me that the language can’t be ‘facelifted’ a bit,” he added. Some customers noted that every other COBOL compiler supported by system makers has added internal subprograms, a report-writer and a screen section.

Other customers say that unlike C/iX, the COBOL II compiler isn’t missing much which ANSI standards require.
“I'm hard pressed to think of anything ANSI-compliant that wasn’t quite right in HP COBOL II," said Greg Stigers of insurance processor ISI Systems. “There are a few things, such as dynamic file naming in the ASSIGN clause of the SELECT statement. But these are clearly spelled out in the HP COBOL II manual.”

HP has been reaching out to get this kind of input from customers for some time, Sartain said. “I do not expect customer involvement with the HP 3000 compiler team to be limited to contact with the compilers’ support team,” he said. “The lab team will work closely with various Interex SIGs, conduct their own primary customer research, as well as work closely with user test sites.”