Shmuel, Experience is the teacher. My problem is that a lot of folks with the experience will be retiring, hence a lot of experience and insight goes away..fwiw
Scott ford www.identityforge.com On Jun 22, 2012, at 10:02 AM, "Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.)" <shmuel+...@patriot.net> wrote: > In <vnetibm.20120621090814.2...@bldgate.vnet.ibm.com>, on 06/21/2012 > at 01:51 AM, Tom Ross <tmr...@stlvm20.vnet.ibm.com> said: > >> We are working on adding help for messages where help is not >> available elsewhere, but including syntax descriptions and >> diagrams to a message manual to explain a COBOL syntax error >> would mean duplicating what is in the Language Reference Manual >> already. > > 1. Nobody asked for that. > > 2. It wouldn't help. > > What would help is an explanation of the *specific* errors that cause > the message to be issued. The messages are not self explanatory, > despite half a century of IBM's claims that they are. > >> For example, P/I has a compiler messages manual, but the >> explanations still require you to read the Language Reference Manual >> to solve the problem. > > I've solved plenty of problems using the explanation in the PL/I > messages manuals[1] without recourse to the language reference > manuals, also there certainly some infrequent cases where I needed to > look up the syntax. But I have never seen a COBOL manual that came > close to the quality of the PL/I manuals I've used. > > [1] Not that they were perfect. > > -- > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT > Atid/2 <http://patriot.net/~shmuel> > We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress. > (S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003) > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
