Ask TPM: What About System/3X Compilers in i5/OS V6R1?

Published: September 17, 2007

Our experts over at Four Hundred Guru get asked a lot of questions and they provide a lot of good answers. But some of your questions are of a strategic or tactical nature. So if you have a question you want to get my take on--or you want to use me to get a straight answer out of the people in IBM who know what is going on--then send me an email and I will see what I can do. Here's a recent question I got about compilers.

Hey, TPM:

I note that you have written on the issue of S/38 and S/36 compilers being dropped in V5R4 and how IBM reversed course. Have you heard about the compilers being dropped in V6R1?

Thanks,

--Bryan

That's a very good question. And lucky for me, last week I just happened to be talking to Bob Cancilla, System i software evangelist, and George Farr, worldwide product manager for application development tools and compilers for the System i, about how Enterprise Generation Language fits into the i5/OS and OS/400 world.

They said that without a doubt the RPG II compiler for the System/36 and the RPG III compiler for the System/38 would be supported with the forthcoming i5/OS V6R1 operating system, which is slated for the first half of 2008. (The word on the street continues to be that V6R1 will come out anywhere from late January to early March, but no firm date for delivery has surfaced.)

Just to recap the history that Bryan alluded to. In January 2006, when IBM refreshed the product line with Power5+ processors and adopted the System i brand for once and for all (hahahahahaha), Big Blue said that WebSphere Development Studio for iSeries V5R4 would be the last release to ship with the RPG II and COBOL compilers that are compatible with the System/36 and the RPG III and COBOL compilers that are compatible with the System/38. IBM advised customers who have deployed System/36 and System/38 applications in the S36EE or S38EE emulation environments to switch to ILE RPG. IBM added that these old compilers would be available as a non-warranted PRPQ in the next release of i5/OS, which we now know as i5/OS V6R1. Some people jumped to the wrong conclusion that code for the System/36 and System/38 would no longer run on V6R1, which is not true. The change would have meant the source code could not be tweaked, recompiled, and then run. (Which is not particularly useful, obviously, but it is better than no runtime at all.)

These compilers will be available, but as IBM is expected to unbundle the components WebSphere Development Studio server side of the development environment and to break apart the elements of WebSphere Development Studio Client, it is reasonable that the S/36 and S/38 compilers will come at a cost, and it is further reasonable to assume that the runtimes on the servers might as well. But, IBM is, as usual, mum on its pricing and packaging plans, except for Farr's hints that things will be unbundled. This unbundling could be tied explicitly to the V6R1 launch, but it could happen separately, depending on how the Rational division of Software Group and the Power Systems division of Systems and Technology Group work it out.

RELATED STORIES

Ask TPM: The Economics of Open Source Software

Ask TPM: System i5--Good Investment or Not?

IBM Reverses Course, Keeps S/3X Compilers in i5/OS V5R5

The Lowdown on S/36 and S/38 Compilers in i5/OS V5R5

IBM Sort Of Clarifies Plans for S/36 and S/38 Environments

System i5 V5R4 Software Announcement Roundup

IBM Is Not Killing Off RPG III, RPG/400 in i5/OS

                     Post this story to del.icio.us
               Post this story to Digg
    Post this story to Slashdot