IBM Mainframe Forum

Hi all

Can you provide me with educational material for Pl/I please?
I'm absolutely new to PL/I and have not found any sort of 'getting started' doc.

David.

Hello,

Here are links to the table of contents of the pl/i language reference and programming guide:

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ ... 0/CONTENTS

http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ ... 0/CONTENTS

Suggest you save a copy of each locally even if you bookmark them.

Hi Dick

Thank you!

regards,
David

You're welcome - good luck

d

hey David, Im a beginner to PL/I also, and Im trying to get learning material and compilers going. Im just an amateur, Im not doing this for work or anything. There are two classic PL/I books available as a free download, I guess the publisher relinquished rights as they are both long out of print:

"PL/I Structured Programming"
http://www.archive.org/details/plistruc ... estscribe3
"The PL/I Programming Language"
http://www.archive.org/details/pliprogrammingla00abra

Also there is a set of 4 online course for learning PL/I that is offered by a few online training companies:
http://www.datatrain.com/library.aspx?id=2639
http://www.interskill.com/catalog/catal ... ontent=pl1

Datatrain quoted me $1000 dollars for 1 year online access to all their courses. A bit much for my finances. Im curious has anyone has taken these courses and know if they are good or not?

good luck to you David. So far PL/I looks to be a very powerful programming language that takes care of a lot of details that C and C++ leave you to work out on your own. I really wish IBM would make their PL/I compilers more accessible to regular (non-mainframe) programmers.

I have a PL/1 compiler for the PC. It is old and not supported any more so I cannot get a key to install it properly so I have to re-install every 60 days. I can send if you need. I doubt if IBM would complain as it was a free download time-limited full blown trial version.

NicC- I would very much appreciate that, there are almost no usable PL/I compilers left for PC. Please contact me at cantrellb (at) gmail dot com

thanks

NicC wrote:I have a PL/1 compiler for the PC. It is old and not supported any more so I cannot get a key to install it properly so I have to re-install every 60 days. I can send if you need. I doubt if IBM would complain as it was a free download time-limited full blown trial version.

Just curious, what version is it?

NicC wrote:I have a PL/1 compiler for the PC. It is old and not supported any more so I cannot get a key to install it properly so I have to re-install every 60 days. I can send if you need. I doubt if IBM would complain as it was a free download time-limited full blown trial version.

The old VA demo dating back to 1997, which is well past its sell-by date...

Anyway, here's a link ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/pli/demos/pliwintb.zip for those interested.

Actually, calling it a demo is a bit misleading. It does everything except stay valid for ever - well, everything that was current in 1997 which is most of what you would need today, and more than you would most likely need on a mainframe today.

The link Prino posted is the one I eventually had to direct Brad Cantrell to and he is up and running.