All I agree with the right of anyone to say, "Macros have no value". And sometimes when someone makes a statement you strongly disagree with, it helps you clarify why you feel strongly.
Personally I find the conditional macro facility in HLASM a most valuable aid in developing assembler based tools. The use of macros can dramatically reduce the amount of source coding required. The use of structured macros can be used to support structured programming in assembler which in turn can dramatically reduce coding errors. As one example, a structured FORTRAN translator STRFORT was written in structure macro assembler and published in the February 1975 ACM SIGPLAN Newsletter. A structured FORTRAN version of the translator was then written and bootstrapped using the assembler version. The Canadian Post Office adopted the portable structured FORTRAN translator as a standard. In 1977 FORTRAN 77 came out with structured extensions. Another commercial product I was involved with supporting at one point was TELON which is a macro assembler based tool generating COBOL or PL/I source programs targeted for CICS, TSO, IMS, DB2, or batch execution. I cannot imagine that the development of this tool would be possible without the power of macros to help reduce the complexity and volume of code required. Don Higgins [email protected]
