[Dwarf-discuss] 020401.1 COBOL data types

[Ron 603-884-2088]

Dave Anderson wrote:
>Ron, with your amendment I don't have any objections to
>020401.1 (Cobol data types).
>
>Question: do you think we should act on this (accept/reject)
>or put the question off to the next revision?

Well, I know this design is shipping on at least one production
system (OpenVMS V8.2) and near or in field test on another (NSK
aka NonStop Kernel), both on Itanium hardware. On that basis, I
believe this design qualifies as "demonstrated and proven in
practice", not just an "untested 'good idea'".

I believe there were other interested parties (in particular
someone at IBM Toronto I seem to recall) at the time my original
description was sent around, but I have no information in hand re
whether any one else has followed suit.

If we don't adopt/approve this proposal it will be hard to see
how we could possibly accept the separate proposal for IEEE
decimal hardware data types which are not even part of approved
standards yet, let alone shipping in production products.

I recommend we accept this proposal.