Compiler specialist Liant Software Corp, Framingham, Massachusetts reckons that the open systems industry has missed a trick in not going after all those PL/I applications running on mainframes, and has introduced Open PL/I, claiming it to be the only PL/I development system available for Unix systems. Open PL/I has proven successful for offloading PL/I applications from IBM Corp mainframes and from Digital Equipment Corp VAX, Data General Corp, Wang Laboratories Inc and Prime Computer Inc systems to Unix, Liant claims, and cites experts that say up to 30% of the code running on the 65,000 IBM mainframes worldwide is written in PL/I. Open PL/I includes a PL/I compiler, a macro preprocessor, and CodeWatch debugger. It is available for Hewlett-Packard Co HP 9000 Series 700 workstations, Sun Microsystems Inc Sun-4 and Sparcstation servers under SunOS 4.X and Solaris 2.X, IBM RS/6000, and Unix System V.3 and V.4 on iAPX-86 systems. It is described as an enhanced superset of the American National Standards Institute PL/I X3.741981 General Purpose Subset, the enhancements including the addition of IBM PL/I extensions such as controlled storage, initialisation of automatics and array cross-sections incorporating the most popular features of IBM’s full PL/I language. The Open PL/I macro preprocessor enables users to manipulate PL/I source code before compilation for including code from external files, replacing text, and for conditional compilation. Open PL/I is available now with pricing starting at an eight-user licence fee of $20,000. Liant says it also offers a range of monthly, quarterly and annual options for licensing.
