1. A method for generating, on a computer system, a multi-threaded Cobol program executable from an original Cobol source program written in Cobol programming language, the multi-threaded Cobol program executable functioning in a manner described by the original Cobol source program, the original Cobol source program described by original Cobol source program statements stored in one or more program files residing on the computer system, the original Cobol source program statements including: original Cobol variable declaration statements describing original Cobol variables with original Cobol variable names and associated Cobol data types, original Cobol program statements specifying functionality of the original Cobol source program, and, optional original Cobol comment statements, the method comprising the steps of: A) inserting, into the original Cobol source program, original parallelization directives which designate regions of parallelization within the original Cobol source program, the original Cobol source program together with the original parallelization directives forming an annotated Cobol source program, stored on the computer system; B) compiling a first time by a first compiler the annotated Cobol source program obtained in step A, the compiling by the first compiler being carried out by performing a parallel aware analysis and translation operation and generating as output, a directly related intermediate computer program in a second computer programming language which includes both intermediate program statements directly related to the original program statements and intermediate parallelization directives directly related to the original parallelization directives; and, C) compiling a second time with a selected second compiler, the intermediate computer program in the second computer programming language generated in step B, to generate as output, the multi-threaded Cobol program executable, the selected second compiler including support for program input in the second computer programming language, and further support for application of the intermediate parallelization directives.
1. A method for generating, on a computer system, a multi-threaded Cobol program executable from an original Cobol source program written in Cobol programming language, the multi-threaded Cobol program executable functioning in a manner described by the original Cobol source program, the original Cobol source program described by original Cobol source program statements stored in one or more program files residing on the computer system, the original Cobol source program statements including: original Cobol variable declaration statements describing original Cobol variables with original Cobol variable names and associated Cobol data types, original Cobol program statements specifying functionality of the original Cobol source program, and, optional original Cobol comment statements, the method comprising the steps of: A) inserting, into the original Cobol source program, original parallelization directives which designate regions of parallelization within the original Cobol source program, the original Cobol source program together with the original parallelization directives forming an annotated Cobol source program, stored on the computer system; B) compiling a first time by a first compiler the annotated Cobol source program obtained in step A, the compiling by the first compiler being carried out by performing a parallel aware analysis and translation operation and generating as output, a directly related intermediate computer program in a second computer programming language which includes both intermediate program statements directly related to the original program statements and intermediate parallelization directives directly related to the original parallelization directives; and, C) compiling a second time with a selected second compiler, the intermediate computer program in the second computer programming language generated in step B, to generate as output, the multi-threaded Cobol program executable, the selected second compiler including support for program input in the second computer programming language, and further support for application of the intermediate parallelization directives. 8. The method of claim 1 wherein step B the compiling the annotated Cobol source program further includes the step of providing standard code optimization, with scope of the standard code optimization restricted so as to prevent optimization associated with multiple Cobol program statements which would span more than one described region for parallelization defined in the annotated Cobol source program.