>We are facing this decision ourselves. I have used Trax elsewhere, and
>it was adequate for the task, but not superlative. The support was
>sometimes adequate, and other times promised follow up calls did not
>happen, apparently due to someone's vacations schedule (!). There are
>some things, such as seeing and manipulating switches, that Trax cannot
>do. It is written in C, whereas Micro Focus products are written
>entirely in COBOL. Someone else probably knows what HP's tool are
>written in (SPL?), but they probably got it right, whichever language
>they used.
>
>We are using the Micro Focus WorkBench on the LAN for initial
>development, and are relatively happy with it. Unfortunately, they are
>not the vendor on the HP, HP is, so support could get weird. I have been
>given mixed messages on their support for intrinsics, VPlus, etc. We are
>waiting for our requisition / acquisition trolls to get us information
>on XDB.
>
>With Trax and XDB, you would be using HP compiler, versus Micro Focus's
>under their WorkBench.
>
>Choose your rut carefully. You will probably be stuck with your decision
>for a very long time. Try to get evaluation copies from all three, and
>set aside serious time to evaluate, with productivity being a
>serendipity, not a goal. Decide what is important in meeting your
>business needs. How much functionality do they provide for debugging
>tasks and HP specific tasks, if that is an issue? What is their learning
>curve? I have used a line debugger to get the job done and done well,
>but the learning curve was murder. How much does cost versus
>functionality matter? What about support? Are you just developing for
>the 3K, or other systems, either now or possibly in the future? Are you
>using any other languages? How much will it hurt you if your chosen
>vendor gets out of the debugger for the 3K business, which could happen
>with any of these three vendors? Are you interested in the upcoming ANSI
>1997 standard? If so, what about Object COBOL?
>
>>----------
>>From:         Stephen Sheehy[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>>Sent:         Thursday, September 04, 1997 10:17 AM
>>To:   [log in to unmask]
>>Subject:      [HP3000-L] COBOL De-bugger
>>
>>What kinds of options are available for COBOL debug tools ?
>>
>>We have a non 3K programming staff and a good/easy to use debug tool
>>could help.
>>
>>What have you seen and what can you recommend ?
>>
>
>