In a recent note, Edward Jaffe said:
> Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 22:36:07 -0700
>
> I also default all edit sessions to CAPS OFF. Though, I prefer the use
> of an initial edit macro over placing gratuitous lowercase data in the
> member. (And, recent releases of ISPF have made automatic issuance of
> initial edit macros easier than ever.)
>
It's rarely gratuitous: the programmer name in my JOB card template
is in mixed case, etc.
> In the past, I was bitten many times by ISPF forcing CAPS ON just
> because there wasn't any lowercase data in the member. It's dismaying
> when, after you type in several lines of (what should be) mixed case
> data, ISPF capitalizes it. (No PC editor would do this!) And, recovering
> from this mistake is brutal.
>
I have a couple that may be worse:
In a small VM/CMS installation, I approached our sysadmin/consultant/
VM JOAT for help with a problem in a Rexx EXEC. As sysadmin, he was
able to log on to my account and try a fix. He didn't notice the
CASE MIXED nor the ADDRESS COMMAND. Failed. He knew what to do:
he re-entered XEDIT and quickly typed TOP; UPPER *; SAVE. I carried
on and threatened managerial action until he recovered the EXEC from
a backup.
In a CDC KRONOS installation, as mixed case capable terminals were
displacing Teletype 33's, the admins made a change, and all EDIT
sessions received an initial message, "CAPS IS NOW THE DEFAULT."
Sullenly, I adapted and generally remembered to override with
"CAPS OFF" every time I started a session (no profile facility).
But once, when I had to make a quick change in a line in a large
text document, in a section with no minuscule alphabetic text,
I was hasty, or forgot to CAPS OFF. Shock! Guess what! "CAPS"
exerts its effect at the point of SAVE. Nor am I sure I was able
to recover from backup.
> It sounds like many people aren't satisfied with ISPF's current
> automatic CAPS status switching. Some people want to keep CAPS ON.
> Others want to keep CAPS OFF. ISPF does neither. After over 25 years,
> perhaps it's time IBM revisits this issue...
>
I'd be delighted if they simply eliminated the CAPS facility
entirely; my experience with it and its brethren has been
uniformly unpleasant. As noted previously, it's much supplanted
by the CAPS LOCK key on modern keyboards.
But an alternative: How about an enhancement to the JCL converter
in the form of case markup. E.g:
//SYSUT1 DD PATHOPTS=ORDONLY,
// PATH='<MINUSCULE>/DEV/NULL</MINUSCULE>'
It's likely more convenient than INCLUDE, and more referentially
transparent, and it provides proterozoic programmers the facility
to operate CAPS ON all the time, even when editing INCLUDE
members.
Or a langage-sensitive CAPS mode in the editor, which would take
text as-is in comments and quoted strings, and convert to majuscule
elsewhere.
-- gil
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