On Wed, Jan 9, 2019 at 11:21 PM Tom Honermann <tom_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> The constraint I'd most like feedback on is 1.1 (The ordinary and wide
> execution encodings are implementation defined). If Microsoft were to
> support use of UTF-8 as the execution encoding (something they are making
> steps towards), it may be conceivable that we could standardize the
> execution encoding as UTF-8 and have that actually reflect existing
> practice (implementations would presumably continue to offer support for
> legacy encodings as an extension). However, this would leave some
> platforms behind; z/OS being the primary example. z/OS continues to
> maintain a significant presence in the industry (as I understand it, good
> numbers are hard to find), but IBM has not been keeping up with C++
> standards. Some guidance regarding how to think about platforms that are
> not keeping up with the standard would be appreciated.
>
IBM offers C++11 compilers compiling EBCDIC applications from EBCDIC source
on z/OS. IBM also produces offerings of applications based on LLVM on z/OS,
which would necessitate advances in the C++ support on the platform. Note
that one of the advantages C++ has on z/OS over Java is that it is capable
of communicating with the EBCDIC-based libraries and system services
without a translation layer. If "C++ leaves no room for another language
between itself and the hardware", then C++ for z/OS would have EBCDIC
execution character sets.