From: johnl@taugh.com   
      
   According to Stephen Fuld  :   
   >> existing compilers supported it.  He claimed that there   
   >> must be hardware support to make it widely available.  He somewhat   
   >> ignored fact that even with hardware support there still needs   
   >> to be support in compilers.   
   >   
   >Or perhaps (again, no personal knowledge - just speculation) that   
   >supporting an additional data type in the IBM COBOL (and, for what its   
   >worth PL/1) compilers is easier if there was hardware support for it.   
      
   Having written a few compilers, I can say that it is equally easy   
   within epsilon to emit a DFADD instruction as the equivalent of CALL   
   DFADD. I could believe it's politically easier, hey we'll look dumb if   
   we announce this swell DFP feature and our own compilers don't use it.   
      
   >> And that C++ templates allow   
   >> fast fixed point decimals as library feature.  If there is no   
   >> such library (and I am not aware of one) it is due to low   
   >> demand and not due to difficulty.   
   >   
   >For the existing Z series base, I suspect anything related to C++ is not   
   >significant, i.e. about as important as DFP is to the typical C++ user. :-)   
      
   Maybe. Remember that IBM has full support for linux on Z. There used   
   to be a pricing hack (may still be) where you could buy a lower cost   
   linux-only Z series processor which was just a regular processor with   
   a microcode tweak to keep it from booting z/OS.   
      
   --   
   Regards,   
   John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for   
   Dummies",   
   Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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