There has been some discussion of these manuals on IBM-MAIN. Its main thrust
appears to be that they should be dumbed down. (This terminology is of course
avoided.)
My own view is that no fundamental rethinking of either their organization or
content is required.
Detailed improvements are sometimes needed.
An example. I conducted a client workshop on the macro language in July; and
during it I realized for the first time that too many questions about the
syntax of the BIFs were coming up because the LR examples of their use all
feature constant arguments when some at least (and in my view most) of them
should feature set-symbol ones instead. I have a memo for John Ehrman about
this in the works; in my experience he has always been receptive to such
suggestions; and making them is, I think, the way to get such changes made.
The burden of what I am saying is that a Language Reference is not a tutorial
introduction. There may well be a place and market for an HLASM for dummies
publication, but making the LR into one is not, in my view, a good idea.
John Gilmore Ashland, MA 01721-1817 USA
