I do not wish to single Martin Trübner out, but the notion that the PrOp is too
big or notably ill-organized is, I think, ridiculous. It has met my needs as I
have had to learn about a good many new and extended instructions in recent
years.
It is a reference, i.e., not a tutorial, publication; and it should remain so.
There is apparently a market for a publication that I have already called The
HLASM for Dummies, but the [misconceived] need for such a book should not be
confused with a requirement that the PrOp be changed radically.
More generally, it seems to me that a number of issues are here being
confounded. I doubt that there is much need or a market for inexpert
assembly-language programmers. Certainly there are other and better ways to
demystify computers than to teach young people impatient with any idea too
complex to TEXT to a friend in 250 characters or less how to write mainframe
assembly-language programs.
Programming skills, professional ones that is, are not a requirement for using
computers anymore than membership in the SAE is a requirement for driving a
car. This has not diminished the need for the SAE and its members or, so far
as I know, produced campaigns to abolish the it. To put the matter more
bluntly, anyone who 1) reads English well and 2) has difficulty extracting the
information he or she needs from the PrOp should reconsider being an
assembly-language programmer at all.
This is my last fulmination on this topic, at least for some months.
