i wouldn't say fun, but it is easy. back in the 1980s i had to write a couple of cobol programs to unpack some dec10 isam files so that i could import them into

i wouldn't say fun, but it is easy. back in the 1980s i had to write a couple of cobol programs to unpack some dec10 isam files so that i could import them into our spiffing new ibm 4381 4gl (nomad/2 if anyone is interested). i read a cobol tutorial in the morning, and wrote the programs in the afternoon. only problem was my spelling - i couldn't spell "environment" as in cobol's ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. and as others have observed, it's the infrastructure (JCL, TP monitors, etc.) which is the real problem.