On 12/4/2010 8:55 AM, Joel C. Ewing wrote:
I've always felt it was a bad idea to have installation mainframe documentation
too far separated from the mainframe platform itself or dependent on any other
server platforms, under the general premise that in a DR situation if we have
recovered the mainframe we want to be sure we have access to all documentation
needed to operate it.
Some documentation was just kept as monocase or dualcase text files on MVS, with
links from ISPF screens. Before DCF/Script became too expensive, some large
documents were maintained as separate chapters in DCF SGML using DCF to build
text and pdf versions of the document. Afterwards those SGML documents were
converted to use docbook tools with docbook document source on MVS, building
multi-html, single-html, and pdf version with free tools on a workstation and
then porting various forms either back to MVS or to media that went off site for
DR.
Because of the complexity of the docbook approach, there has been pressure in
recent years to go to a more update-friendly wysiwyg solution, with a management
preference for MS Word. My own preference is OpenOffice. The OO price is right,
enabling everyone to afford the current version, while non-trivial licensing
costs with MS Word typically mean there are multiple, not-completely-compatible
versions floating around the corporation. My version of OpenOffice has much
better support than my version of MS Word for maintaining documents of several
hundred pages as a master document and separate chapters and optionally
generating both html and pdf document formats, which can be saved on MVS and
elsewhere. I also find a much lower level of astonishment using OpenOffice - it
seems like MS Word more often tries to do too much and makes erroneous
assumptions about my formatting intentions. And then of course there is the
philosophical issue of having MVS documentation dependent on MicroSoft!
I am not averse to the concept of a wiki and I believe we actually have one that
is available to Technical Services and used by PC Technical Support, but to not
violate my requirement for availability of MVS documentation, some form of the
information would have to be portable both to MVS and in some other form (html,
pdf) that would be accessible without any functioning server in a DR scenario.
But, z/OS could be your server, so you could host the
html pages from z/OS and access these from a browser.
[Or are you saying you only want docs that can be read
using ISPF?]
Just use the free HTTP server that comes with z/OS or
order the Apache-based no-charge server available with
the most recent ported tools.
There would also have to be some support to take a collection of separate
related articles and assemble them into a hard copy manual, such as might be
required by Operations to restart the computer center after a complete power
down when no servers are available.
Joel C Ewing
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