+1 to what Mike and Charles have said.
And I too have done much of what Mike said below over the past 40
years.
Things wrong in RTM relative to SRBs and FRRs. Fairly recently I
found a bug in ESPIE. I've reported doc that is wrong about
Macros, or the Macro is wrong relative to the doc. Or the sample
can't be copied because the way the PDF is built, the copy for
paste doesn't work right.
BPXDYN2 -- Showed them where the COBOL samples were going to
confuse newbie COBOL programmers.
I have had arguments with IBM management on some of these
subjects as a contractor, client and employee.
BTW -- I did vote for Peter's RFE. What an ordeal to get an
account to be able to vote on an RFE.
Steve Thompson
On 5/22/2023 6:33 PM, Mike Shaw wrote:
+1
I have been working with IBM z/OS documentation for over 40 years and have
submitted many reader comment forms in that time. In that time I have found
and reported typographical errors, inconsistencies, obsolete information,
and even flat-out WRONG statements.
Without real-world feedback from z/OS professionals who actually USE the
documentation, it's accuracy and usability will not improve.
IBM has good technical documentation writers but they are NOT end-users.
Eliminating RCFs disconnects authors of the documentation from consumers of
the documentation...NOT a good idea.
Mike Shaw
MVS/QuickRef Support Group
Chicago-Soft, Ltd.
On Mon, May 22, 2023, 6:05 PM Charles Mills <[email protected]> wrote:
For those who have not been following this discussion, IBM is on track to
remove the RCF process as we have known it for forty or so years. Customers
and ISVs will be limited to a Web pop-up “Was this helpful?” and if you
answer No, you will be able to briefly justify that answer. There is also
apparently now no path whatsoever for a customer to open a requirement
against IBM documentation.
We need a way to provide formatted suggestions for improvements,
clarifications or corrections to IBM manuals.
If you would like that, then wishing and hoping and grumping will not make
it happen. Here is what might make it happen:
- You could start by replying with a simple +1 to this post. The IBM
powers that be do not participate in this forum, but there is strong
evidence that what happens here sometimes percolates in that direction.
- You could vote for Peter Farley’s RFE. Find it here:
https://ibm-z-hardware-and-operating-systems.ideas.ibm.com/ideas/ZOS-I-3691
(apologies for any fold).
- If you have an IBM rep at your shop, you could let him or her know. If
you simply know an IBMer you could tell him or her nicely.
- If you have contacts who are responsible at your shop for other products
such as the languages, Db2, CICS, MQ and so forth, you could try to get
them to chime in. Apparently one of the pushbacks from the documentation
team is “IBM has 1200 products and our process works fine for all of them –
what’s wrong with you z/OS people?”
Thank you.
Charles
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