I think the issue of portability is over-rated.  Regardless of how standard
the language may be, the way that a program is written depends critically
on the computer and the operating system with which it works.  The HP3000
uses mainly IMAGE and VPLUS, and that defines the way a program is written.

Some time ago I switched for a period to programming on an IBM mainframe
using CICS.  Not knowing any better I adapted my experience with the HP3000
to write the programs.  They worked - but after I left, the company had to
re-engineer most of my programs because CICS works in a totally different
way from MPE and my code was very inefficient.  In essence, the CICS
programmer has to be aware of a fundamentally different way of swapping
programs in and out of memory, and design the programs to correspond from
the ground up.

Batch programs, on the other hand, especially if they use KSAM instead of
IMAGE, can be very easily migrated from the HP3000 to an IBM mainframe and
vice versa.  KSAM can be accessed from COBOL using the standard COBOL
verbs.  This converts into ISAM on an IBM (OK, that probably dates me!).

Learning and knowing a language is one thing - and very easily learnt.
Using it to put together a software system on a specific machine is
something else - and requires a lot of experience and knowledge to do well.

John D. Alleyn-Day
Alleyn-Day International
408-286-6421   408-286-6474 (Fax)
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"The man that never made a mistake never made anything"