On 8/23/2011 3:55 AM, Ken Brick wrote:
On 23/08/2011 07:05 AM, Steve Comstock wrote:
On 8/22/2011 2:29 PM, John Walker wrote:
In regards to the comments about IBM assembler manuals:
The biggest issue for me is that NONE of their manuals
in pdf or tso datasets have any easy connectivity.
You mean to each other? I'm not sure what 'connectivity' means
in this context.
I am sorry, but I don't know the answer to the following question:
Do I look it up in POOP or in Language Reference?
AND that is crucial to know. NOT knowing where to look I always
have to look through x number of manuals. And by-the-way, it might
not even be in an Assembler manual. It might be in a totally
unrelated manual. So THEN, I have to go look through ALL IBM
manuals on the face of the planet. PLEASE. That's just wrong
and it wastes your valuable time. You know how I avoid that?
I keep everything I want to know, regardless of what it's about
in ONE flat file on the mainframe. I keep a consistent naming
convention for each 'how to' entry and so GENERALLY I know how
to find the info I'm looking for. Table of contents? It's nice,
but my next question would be then, 'which chapter do I look in?'.
I don't know which chapter something is in sometimes(or most of
the time), so here we go again. Looking through all of the TOC
entries in this book, then this one, then this one... Again,
that's not good. Yes, some of you know how and where to
look. I don't, and I never have in IBM manuals. And yet,
with the way I keep notes, I can ALWAYS find what I need. More
importantly, for anybody except experts, it's a technique which
would be best for EVERYONE(unless you have a preferrence to take
longer finding something). So, my goal would be to get IBM to
implement one file for anything which has an Assembler related
datum in it. Then provide a simple, non-techie-cized search
algorithm to find things. Keep it up-to-date everytime there
is any new procedure, instruction, or problem found with an
Assembler instruction or a procedure implemented in Assembler.
Get a grip man! It's not that hard:
* If your question is hardware instruction related, it's the PoO
* If your question is about Assembling, limits of the
Assembler, and Assembler statements, it's the Language Reference
* If your question is about files, it's in one of two docs:
+ Using Data Sets - narratives
+ Macro Instructions for Data Sets - macro syntax
* If you want to know about a service, then:
+ MVS Assembler Services Guide - narratives
+ MVS Assembler Services Reference (2 volumes) - macro syntax
* If it's how to bind (a.k.a. link edit), look in MVS Program Management
The important thing is to frame your question clearly to begin with.
BTW, yes I know about IBMIN.
?? Don't know what that is.
It's ok for looking for some things, but it has significant
irrelevancy in what searches done on it finds.
If you say so.
I still say the important thing is to think clearly before
you start floundering around in the manuals.
--
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
* Special promotion: 15% off on all DB2 training classes
scheduled by September 1, taught by year end 2011
* Check out our entire DB2 curriculum at:
http://www.trainersfriend.com/DB2_and_VSAM_courses/DB2curric.htm
Steve,
I know your business is education and I believe that education is
showing the linkages between information sources.
As I implied in,earlier reply to a different thread that the "assembler
manual" that needed rewriting was the Principles of Operations while
know re state my belief that what is needed is a "Usage Guide to Machine
Instructions".
In all the languages, Assembler, Cobol, PL/1 and REXX, we have a usage
guide, that tells us how to "run" the source program, and a reference
guide that rells us about the language elements.
What we don't have in most languages is a guide to how to use the elements
Well, that's what our classes are for. I'm a firm
believer that you motivate students best by showing
them how to use the elements of the various languages
and products we teach.
The labs are where it's at: I don't care if you're
the most entertaining instructor ever, if you can't
demonstrate reasonably interesting _applications_ of
the topic you're teaching it will seem meaningless and
useless to the students.
That's why I continually watch for the interesting
applications on z/OS: add them to our courses. That's
why I put together this page:
http://www.trainersfriend.com/CoolThingsToDo.htm
Have fun, work hard, and "Ooooh! That's interesting!"
are what our courses are all about.
--
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
* Special promotion: 15% off on all DB2 training classes
scheduled by September 1, taught by year end 2011
* Check out our entire DB2 curriculum at:
http://www.trainersfriend.com/DB2_and_VSAM_courses/DB2curric.htm
