Chris Craddock writes:
. . .The autocurse installers exist because a significant number of
customers ask (demand!) them. The ibm-main audience is not necessarily
typical because there are a lot of customers who can't spell SMP/E let
alone configure high end software products.
CC
and he is surely right.
Still, I am dubious about where this notional marketing imperative has taken
us.
There is one IBM and there are, fortunately, many ISVs.
Each of them who elects to do so perforce devises his own "autocurse", the
syntax of which must be learned; and in the end none is learned or used well
because there are too many of them.
IBM's z/OS packaging rules and SMP/E have the singular merit that they are
not multiple. Moreover, notionally "simpler", easier-to-use alternatives to
them always in my experience turn out to share the defects of textbooks
having titles like "Calculus made easy": They achieve their objectives,
when they do, by leaving the hard parts out.
In the end pandering to clots, however compelling the arguments of the
marketing VP for doing so may seem to be, is always ill-advised.
John Gilmore
Ashland, MA 01721-1817
USA
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