Has anyone considered a fourth generation language called DataNow from
Idaho Computer Services, Inc.?  We have been using it for several years
and couldn't do without it.  Development time is minimal (one programmer
wrote 7 extract, sort, and print programs in one day).  There is no
compiling, linking, etc.  Up to six databases and 16 datasets may be
accessed at a time.  KSAM and MPE files are also accessable.  MPE
security controls all data access (you need read access to the data).
The resulting program can be texted into a text editor (Editor, Q-Edit,
etc.) to alter or create a seperate program.  Output can be to a
dataset, a KSAM or MPE file, or to a common delimited file for down-
loading to a spreadsheet, or of course, to a printer or a terminal
screen.  With 29 batch jobs and 121 sessions running, our HP300/997-300
extracted 1,304,668 206 character records into a KSAM file in
approximately 4 minutes.

Just putting another apple in the pot.  Thanks for your time.