On Wed, 2009-06-24 at 13:03 -0400, Clark Morris wrote:
> Back in the 1980's I submitted a group of requirements for SLAC
> assembler features (duplicate and overlapping USING flagging, listing
> the usings in header or title line, etc.). They were all rejected and
> unfortunately I had a conflict for the session period where the
> rejections were announced. It would have been interesting to watch
> the IBM representative read the rejection reasons given that he gave
> me advice on the phrasing and was VERY well aware of the SLAC mods.
> His comment afterward was that he did not necessarily agree with the
> party line. A couple or more years later HLASM was announced and the
> same representative told me when I asked for a handout before going to
> another session (conflicts again) that my requirements were used as
> part of the justification for the effort. This is not to criticize
> the representative who has been a valuable member of the SHARE
> community both as a user and as an IBM representative. It is to note
> that even rejected requirements are sometimes implemented.
Point taken. The requirements process is equal parts social and
technical.
Oh, and John Ehrman's Da Man.
I still have the Assembler Requirements Committee mailing list from that
time (73 people), but you aren't on it. I must have started collecting
names just at the same time as you dropped out. I'll add you in now!
And to bring you up to speed, here's a status report I wrote to
Committee regulars in early 1991:
===
To: Assembler H Observers
From: David Andrews, ASMH Requirements Chairman
There will be two requirements sessions at SHARE 76 in
San Francisco. A606 and A607 will meet at 10:30 on Wednesday and
Thursday morning. Please make plans to attend.
Since SHARE 73 (Orlando) the ASMH Requirements Committee has
endured considerable turnover in personnel. Jerry Callen, who originally
chaired the committee, no longer works for a SHARE installation and has
resigned. Shmuel (Sam) Golob, who chaired the committee in Anaheim and
New Orleans, will be unable to travel to San Francisco. Bill Winters
retired on December 31, 1990; it was Bill who refitted Greg Mushial's
SLAC modifications to version 2 levels, and who created machine-readable
assembler source (from the microfiche) for all IBM APARs and PTFs. Dave
Weintraub (SHARE Languages Project Manager) and I both missed SHARE 75 in
New Orleans. Cindy Craine (IBM) has replaced Gil Lee as the Assembler H
Manager.
Sad to report, there has been a corresponding loss of continuity
in the activities of the Committee (which is to say we have made little
progress). It is my great hope to pick up on this next month.
Here are the major issues to be taken up:
ASSEMBLER H SURVEY:
Gil Lee (IBM) originally requested a SHARE-wide survey of assembly
language usage. The survey was written at SHARE 74, and approval to
distribute the survey was secured from the SHARE Board of Directors by
Dave Weintraub. Changes were made to the survey at SHARE 75 in New
Orleans but so far has not been issued to the membership. The updated
(and hopefully final) survey is attached.
REQUIREMENTS CREATION:
Here is a short history of requirements issued against the ASMH
product:
SOMVSE86022 Incorporate SLAC mods into ASSEMBLER H (REJECTED)
SDADTS86035 Optionally Flag Instruction/Data-type Mismatches (REJECTED)
SDADTS86036 List all Active Usings at the Top of Each Page (REJECTED)
SDADTS86037 Flag duplicate and overlapping USING statements (REJECTED)
SDADTS86038 Supply a set of Structured Assembler Macros (REJECTED)
SDADTS86039 Datatype Sensitive Instructions and/or Macros (REJECTED)
SALANG89601 Reconsider SOMVSE86022 (UNDER STUDY)
Several IBMers (John Ehrman, Gil Lee and Stephen Anania among them)
have suggested that we would be better served by breaking up the requirement
to "Incorporate SLAC mods" into individual requirements. While there has
been general agreement among the Committee members that this is a good
idea, we have not exactly been overrun with volunteers.
===
The SHARE BOD eventually disapproved our request to do a SHARE-wide
study, suggesting (as I recall) that we publish a survey in the SSD
instead. So Gil Lee never did get the survey data that he wanted from
us.
>From trip reports I wrote over the next couple of years:
SHARE 76: "About a dozen of us debated and voted on 15 requirements ...
There are 40 requirements left that three of us will write up before the
next SHARE meeting."
SHARE 77: "I probably spent two days at SHARE doing this stuff, and I
sure will be glad when the workload decreases a little ... We have a
total of 36 requirements in front of IBM now ... IBM's initial response
has been encouraging."
SHARE 78: "It was relatively quiet here this time, and we only submitted
a handful of new requirements. Things are in a holding pattern for now,
while we see what (if anything) IBM is going to do about the
30-something requirements already in the oven."
SHARE 79: "This was my first SHARE Assembler Requirements session since
IBM announced the new turbocharged assembler. We spent the hour mostly
patting ourselves on the back and formally closing the zillions of
requirements that we've written over the last few years. We also had
some discussion over how the assembler group at SHARE should proceed. Is
it just for requirements anymore? ... Four or five new requirements were
discussed also, but nobody could get very excited about these until
they'd gotten to know the new assembler."
--
David Andrews
A. Duda and Sons, Inc.
[email protected]
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