Does COBOL 6.2 compilation cost more ?

[The Date]

Hi,

We have recently started seeing more use of CPU on our mainframes. One of the reasons is high CPU time used by compilation. We have instructions like these:

You should not need to compile production version of program to get it loaded to a test region. The only reason to compile is to ready the program for Xpediter. If the program is having DB2 bind issues when pointing to PROD, this can be fixed without recompiling the program. That said, sometimes you just can’t get it sorted without recompiling.

Please use compiling of production programs sparingly as there is a system cost and impact performance.

The bold part above, is that a common problem with COBOL 6.2?

[Robert Sample]

I have not seen any objective data about COBOL 6.2 compiles being more expensive than COBOL 4.2 compiles, but I can see how they could be since there was a good bit added into the compiler with 6.2.

Please use compiling of production programs sparingly as there is a system cost and impact performance.

This is always true no matter what language nor version is being used. At a previous employer, programmers hated month-end because we set compiles to be discretionary (they only got CPU time when nothing else needed it) and during month-end we ran 100% CPU utilization for about 3 or 4 days. Compiles that normally ran in 5 minutes the rest of the month could easily take 5 hours or more during month-end.

[The Date]

Thanks Robert for your reply.

Is there a suggestion so that we can start looking at to make COBOL 6.2 better? Are there some ways to do it?

[lchui]

Thanks Robert for your reply.

Is there a suggestion so that we can start looking at to make COBOL 6.2 better? Are there some ways to do it?

Have you visited the COBOL Migration Portal? I think you'll find a lot of useful info (i took a quick peek and there's a COBOL 6.2 Performance Tuning Guide posted). Also consider registering for the Migration/Performance Tuning webinars.

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cobol-zos/6 ... ortal.html

hope this helps

[The Date]

Thanks Ichui. That's a good documentation.

How do you pronounce your name, pardon me.