IBM Systems Application Architecture - Common Programming Interface (CPI)

Common Programming Interface (CPI)

The Common Programming Interface attempted to standardize compilers and application programming interfaces among all systems participating in SAA, with the objective of providing "a common programming interface for the entire IBM computer product line - PCs, System/3x, System/370. This implies that under SAA, a program written for any IBM machine will run on any other".

CPI included a number of pieces:

  • Programming languages — PL/I, COBOL, Fortran, C, RPG and REXX.
  • Application generator — IBM Cross System Product (CSP).
  • Database access — SQL.
  • Query interface — QMF.
  • Presentation interface — the OS/2 Presentation Manager was a full implementation of the SAA presentation interface. IBM Graphical Data Display Manager (GDDM) provided compatible SAA graphics support for MVS and VM.
  • Dialog interface — ISPF represented the text mode dialog interface; OS/2 represented the full graphical interface.

Read more about this topic:  IBM Systems Application Architecture

Famous quotes containing the words common and/or programming:

    Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.
    C. Wright Mills (1916–62)

    If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.
    Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)