"Thomas Conley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > David, > <snip> > Yes, I am passionate about this issue because I have wasted countless hours > debugging problems related to so-called "self-documenting" error messages. I > find it amazing that the COBOL developers can thumb their nose at IBM > standards with impunity, and then I get ridiculed for pointing that out. >
Tom, You say this in this message and said (when I asked where you got this idea - in another message) "I got this idea from the IBM pubs coordinator. " Can you tell me "Who/what" "IBM pubs coordinator" told you that there was an IBM-wide "standard" that all messages (for all products) should have a documented "programmer response" documentation? This is a quite serious question. I (personally) am aware of "product publication coordinators" but from all the times that I have dealt with IBM dox, I new of some inter-product communication BUT not of any IBM-wide coordinator. If there is truly such a person (or position) *AND* if they truly have a company-wide policy, then is very much something that "we" need to deal with the COBOL folks on. It is true that I (still) find the messages self-documenting, but I do understand that not everyone does. -- Bill Klein wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
