RM/COBOL vs FUJITSU = ? 3

[theotyflos]

Hi all,
I'm looking for opinions from anyone who has experience with both products/companies. Can anyone tell me about the differences between them and especially about the advantages and the disadvantages of each product compared to the other?

I'm curently using RM/COBOL 7 on unix, 7.50 + COBOL-WOW 3.12 on windows but looking to move to Fujitsu due to: a)lack of support from Liant and b)bugs in WOW.

Recently I went to fujitsu's page, read about Power Cobol and Net Cobol and found them interesting.

Any thoughts are welcome.

TIA.

 

[k5tm]

Theophilos,

If you think my intent in this forum is to "advertise and nothing else" then I would suggest that you "red flag" my post and allow the moderators to deal with it. You might want to check a few of my posts and see how much I "advertise" in this forum.

If you have unresolved technical support issues, then an email to rm_support@liant.com would be appropriate. Make sure you emphasize that this is an old issue which has not been resolved to your satisfaction.

Flogging me in tek-tips may be counterproductive. Sending an email to t.morrison at the obvious domain name might be more productive in resolving an issue, though I do not run sales or tech support.

I am sorry that my attempt at humor regarding "guilty" does not to have crossed cultural boundaries very well. It was meant as an ironic admission that sometimes we screw up...

And, yes, I did mean to state that OO, functions, threading, etc, do not enhance delivered applications as much as strong XML support, transparent relational access to legacy data, bringing legacy applications into the world of web services and browsers, etc. Please do not confuse that which is beautiful in the eye of the application developer (OO, for example) with that which is valuable to the end customer (XML data interchange with suppliers, for example).

Tom Morrison

http://www.liant.com

 

[Crox]

Hi Theophilos,

I have the same kind of feelings as you have, every time when I work with a new release of any program, especially Microsoft sofware. They always ask you to buy the new release because 'all problems are solved' and there are so many new features that you need...

It is a pitty that these manufacturers are not easy to punish for this bad behaviour because I would love to! They should be forced to make a release error-free before they ever create a new feature.

Regards,

Crox

 

[k5tm]

There is very easy and obvious way to "punish" a manufacturer.

So... think about it... is this forum going to end up like comp.lang.cobol? Given thread209-680995 and where this thread seems to be going, maybe I should just disappear and get to work on all those bugs...

Think I'll take a vacation....

Maybe this response is meant as humor :-D (but maybe it isn't :-( ).

Tom Morrison

http://www.liant.com

 

[Dimandja]

Tom,

Your inference that Thread209-680995 is going bad is not true. Many festering issues, myths and other conceptions were addressed in that thread. It needed to be done, and I for one benefitted from reading about others thoughts on the matter. Of course, no one is forced to agree with anything or anyone: it's more important to listen.

Dimandja

 

[k5tm]

Dimandja,

Just a bad day (and I actually am on vacation).

 

[k5tm]

And did you notice... There actually is a communication problem!

 

[theotyflos]

Tom,

As you can see (I suppose), I'm very new to this forum; maybe the newest of you all. I don't know what your posts or answers to other people's questions are, and I don't know how to find out (yet). I only know what you have answered to ME. So my conclusion that you "advertise" comes from your answers to ME!!!. That's not an apology, but an explanation.

I will NEVER red flag your posts. Maybe we disagree, or even "fight" but your right to say whatever you want is as good as mine (if not higher).

I didn't email rm_support@liant.com, but I used your site's online technical support center (

http://www.liant.com/support/email).

Not once but THREE or FOUR TIMES. Got no answer :-(. Why do you think I'm "angry" for?

I agree that flogging is counterproductive. For both of us. But it was the last thing I can do since I don't have support and since the conversation has got to this point. And as you can see in my first post, my intention when I started this thread, wasn't to "flog" you. Don't take it personal.

I apologize I didn't understand your humor. Are you english? If yes, who does? (that's humor).

I don't know what exactly your position and your job in Liant is, but let me tell you something: Did you (you personaly, Liant and EVERY OTHER vendor) ever was a programmer? I suppose the answer is yes at least for the majority of you. Then you had been in our position. HAVE YOU FORGOT HOW IT WAS? HAVE YOU FORGOT THE TIME THAT YOU WERE RELYING in every vendors products? HAVE YOU FORGOT WHAT YOU EXPECTED? You are companies that want to make MONEY. Don't you understand that SUPPORT is going to bring you money?

About OO, functions, threads etc: I don't think that these
capabilities make apps only "beautiful in the eye", but also more functional, and easier to produce/maintain.

Theophilos.

PS1. If I send to Liant some questions will they read them now?
PS2. Forget about work when you're on vacation.

 

[theotyflos]

Hi Crox,
Thanks for the support. I'm really happy that -at least one- someone else too, has the same feelings. Although, "punishing" companies, does not get anywhere. The important thing is that companies should realize that providing better products and better support, is good for everyone. Otherwise everyone loses.

Theophilos.

 

[Crox]

Hi,

Here in Holland, we have a consumers law. One of the rules is that a product has to behave as one can reasonably expect and when it breaks, the manufacturer has to repair it for a price that is in line with the age and currency of the product. According to these rules, it is possible to go to the judge with a few consumers and ask the judge to force the company to do what they promised and what we could reasonably expect.

Punish is perhaps the wrong word. Force them to do what they have to do is perhaps better.

Until now, nobody went to court to force Microsoft to repair all those stupid bugs in all those window-programs. It seems that people are afraid to do so but I think that according to this consumer-law, it should be possible. If you know how much Microsoft earned with this software full with bugs, it is very reasonable to force them to make it bug-free, very, very reasonable.

It is also the pc-environment attitude/culture that makes it that people are willing to live with all those bugs. In the mainframe environments I am working, no one accepts bugs at all. No one is asking for new features while bugs are torturing them every day. Errors and problems are solved until the software is running without errors.

Regards,

Crox

 

[fredericofonseca]

Theophilos,

As you have used Liant's web page to ask for support then it is not necessarily Liant's fault that you have not been replied.

As my company was responsible for technical support for Portuguese customers any request from Portugal would be redirected to my company.

Now in your case the same is happening and you are being redirected to another company that is not responding to you then Liant will not be aware of it unless you tell them (and not through the web page!!)

In my particular case I ended up giving support not only to Portuguese customers but also to Spanish and some Italian ones, as my response was faster (sometimes the only) that those customers got.


Regarding your opinion about OO and others.

I agree that the lack of intrinsic functions is an IMPORTANT issue, and I would also like to have it implemented on RM.

As for threads, this really depends on the type of programming you do. Most of my customers (software houses using RM) do not require it.

Do not agree with OO. OO does not necessarily help you build programs faster/better, and it can be a real pain to maintain.

One thing that would help everyone and that I am trying to get implemented outside COBOL-WOW, is the ability to call the Windows API's and/or OCX/COM objects.
(This is not easy, and will take a while, but I'll get there as soon as I have more time to do it!!)
Note that you can partially do this already using Codebridge, but not pragmatically, and not for all of them.


As for your support request, I would send it to the email Tom mentioned, CC him, and if you feel like it you can also send it to me at "frederico at memosis.pt", and I may be able to help you even though I am not supposed to be able to do it anymore according to Liant UK.

Just out of curiosity what country are you from, and are you buying directly from Liant or through a reseller?




Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd

http://www.syssoft-int.com

 

[k5tm]

Theophilos,

We have had a look at the email history, and I think that you will be contacted by our London office. HOWEVER, I strongly urge you to email me at t.morrison at the liant domain.

Frederico, Theophilos is from Greece (at least that appears to be the case from his email domain). I think we can help him, but he needs to contact me. BTW, Theophilos, I am located in the Texas office -- I am the original Texas employee back when this was all a California company. I am married to a very nice Greek lady (2nd generation) and my children value their Greek heritage!

In one post I stated "(not that we would ever be guilty of that )" This was my attempt at humor -- admitting that sometimes we do make mistakes (the red face is an admission of guilt). I can tell you however, that we also try to work with our customers to correct mistakes. If you have put a lot of effort into using WOW, I think your efforts will be rewarded by the improvements in the new releases.

This is a bit of a working vacation; I am checking work regularly and am on standby to correct code as we bring a new product to market.

So, Theophilos, I look forward to receiving your email.

Tom Morrison

http://www.liant.com

 

[theotyflos]

Hi Crox,

You are very lucky you live in Holland. I live in Greece. Greece is like heaven (generally) but when it comes to laws, civil rights etc, I think we live in the middleages.

I agree with you. Someone should "fight" Microsoft. But who has the time and the money to do that? I never liked windows. If I could, I would work only on unix. But I hear customers shout: We want windows. So I have no option...

Regards,
Theophilos.

 

[theotyflos]

Frederico,

First of all, thank you for all your posts. I used Liant's web page because I thought it would be a more direct approach. I live in Greece and since there isn't a Liant's department in Greece (as there is in Portugal), which company were my requests been redirected to? We buy our products from Liant's reseller here, a company named TECHNET (

http://www.technet.gr)

but I can't ask for support from them, because they just don't have the knowledge. They are just resellers.

What you are doing (giving support to other people outside Portugal) deserves a star

I may contact you in case Liant continues not to give me support ( just kidding )

About OO, I won't argue anymore. I think it's a matter of personal opinion. Functions, however, threads and, as you very well said, direct call to windows's api is a MUST. I can also mention here, that a few more controls should be integrated/upgrated in WOW: For example, Treeview, Listbox that support long filenames, and most of all a GRID!!!. Anyway. I'll write Tom about all these and see.

Regards
Theophilos.

 

[theotyflos]

Tom,

I think our small "fight" has come to a happy end and I 'm very pleased about that .

I will contact you soon (after your vacations are over ).

Greek wife? That IS a surprise. Isn't it funny how small the world is?

Give my regards to your family.

Theophilos.

 

[fredericofonseca]

Theophilos,

Thanks for the star.

As for your tech support, I would ask Liant if TECHNET should or not give you support (during the free period you are entitled to when you buy the products, or later if you have a contract).

Normally the distributors will also be the ones to give support, but that is not a requirement, so you need to get an answer from Liant.

Regardless of whether Liant answers your questions you are always welcome to place any questions either here or at comp.lang.cobol, and if someone knows the answer they will help you.





Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd

http://www.syssoft-int.com