Alan, That is the problem -- These are *reference* books, not HOWTO documents. They are not tutorials on how to accomplish specific tasks, and should not be. If IBM wants to produce HOWTO documents for the new class of technorati, then they are certainly welcome to do so.
As an aside, I always felt that the various "Users Guide" and "Programmers Guide" manuals provided appropriate task-oriented HOWTO material. I have no objection to putting THAT information into a KC-type environment, where it might indeed be helpful. Just not the *reference* documents. The question at hand is why IBM would completely remove access to a working, proven method of research and knowledge verification of *reference* material for the experienced practitioners in the field, in favor of a new and yet unproven technique that does not necessarily even work for the new "culture shift" technicians to whom you refer. IBM does themselves and all their customers a complete disservice by forcing everyone to use such a new, and currently unstable and ill-formed, knowledge store. See also the many, many complaints about the instability and frequent unavailability of the electronic software delivery service for z that regularly appear here and elsewhere. New is not necessarily better. It's just new. It is not that we old dogs cannot learn new tricks. It's just that when the new tricks don't do the job that needs to be done when the business depends on it, there must be a backup method available to get the job done. There is not any backup at this time, and that is the real problem. IMHO, of course. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. Peter -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alan Altmark Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2014 1:47 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: publibz->infocenter->knowledgecenter On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 20:33:06 -0500, Mike Shaw <[email protected]> wrote: >Knowledge Center is IT from now on, boys and girls. > >We're not happy about it either. There are a lot of bytes still to go under the bridge. What has happened is some sort of culture shift in the way people (younger than me) *want* to get information. The Knowledge Center (KC) makes some attempt to organize information into task-oriented groupings. The problem is that books themselves aren't really structured (yet) to take advantage of it. Most (System z) manuals are replete with headers to help the reader find and follow the information trail. And those are tied to running headings and footings to make flipping through a book easier. (I find that I still use them when flipping pages in a PDF.) And the books were arranged by topic, not task or discipline. But it all has to go. BookManager drove me crazy with all the hierarchical relationships and little 2-sentence pages. Grrrr!!!. But it showed perfectly how the document was structured. (Eeeewwww! Bad word!) Those same structures are still with us in an environment where you shouldn't have keep clicking or paging (NEXT PREV) to find the info. So KC gets us part of way there, but the books themselves inhibit true success. It makes me think that the next generation of information writers will simply use Wiki-style updates with tags to indicate what type of information it is. Then the Knowledge Vortex will pull it in and shuffle it into all the venues those tags mandate. How we get the well-organized books we have come to know like the backs of our hands out of that is yet to be seen. The KC isn't a library of books. It's a compendium of factoids. And that's what's making everyone (myself included) a bit off balance. I don't do well with Facebook, either. Or IBM Connections. It reminds me of when I learned LISP, a non-procedural language. My mind had difficulty with the concept, not the language itself. New tricks! Arf! Arf! -- This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
