------------------------------------<snip>---------------------------
(IBM-MAIN, this is a thread that started on IMS-L, but I thought I might get
some useful discussion from IBM-MAIN as well.)
This is puzzling to me. Are you advocating having JOBLIB/STEPLIBs that specify every single library that your particular jobs
needs to access? This seems to me to be (no offense) nuts! I am of the total opposite inclination. I would much prefer to have
a "system search chain", as it were, that contains all of the libraries that have load modules that need to be
executed. As a developer I, in fact, would prefer to have our application loadlib's also in LINKLIST. The only reason I gave up
on asking for that is because of the whole "need to refresh the LLA" thing. VSE is so much simpler in this regard.
There is a "permanent search chain" that has all of the standard "load libraries" in it. Things such as
TCP/IP, DB2, DL/I, etc., as well as our production application library. Then in your job's JCL if you wanted, say, to execute
the test version of a program which needs to call the production version of a subroutine you need only specify an
"override" library. This l!
ibrary will be searched first, and if a module is not found then it will search
the system search chain.
To me LINKLIST is similar to this. But I've been told that we can't use it for
application libraries because then the LLA would need to be refreshed each time
we made a change to something in our application load library.
Frustrating...
-------------------------------------<unsnip>------------------------------------------
Frank, I understand your frustration, but there are some limitations
that need to be kept in mind.
1. To place your library(s) in the LINKLIST, they must be cataloged in
the Master Catalog. But unless the name starts with a SYS1. qualifier,
it can't appear in multiple catalogs. This could be a real problem in a
multiple-image environment. Do you want to maintain multiple copies of
each dataset? I seriously doubt it. Maintenance headache. Much better to
have it in a USERCAT, which can itself be shared across multiple images,
but this precludes LINKLIST presence. (Master Catalog integrity is
absolutely CRUCIAL to system availability. You can't even IPL with a
corrupted MCAT, in most cases. That's why system guys get really nervous
about any access other than READ to the MCAT.)
2. There's no reason that some system libraries can't be in LINKLIST.
Language Environment and TCP/IP come to mind. Depending on the names,
perhaps your compiler(s) as well.
3. Even in a single-image environment, it can create a hassle when your
systems guys start testing a new level of the Operating System, if
they've had to create a new Master Catalog. Not to mention maintenance
and upgrades to OEM products.
Consider this: even if you can't get all the libraries you want into
LINKLIST, and thus into LLA, you can probably get them under the VLF
"umbrella", improving performance. Check with your systems guys about
this possibility.
For the foreseeable future, JOBLIB/STEPLIB are going to be a fact of
life. No getting around it.
--
Rick
--
Remember that if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes.
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