Cheryl:
> On Aug 23, 2016, at 2:51 PM, Cheryl Watson <che...@watsonwalker.com> wrote: > > Hi Ed, > > Regarding "Letting IBM off with variations is nonsense.", I choose to think > of it as being pragmatic. I can complain all day about how IBM's reduction > of staff is hurting the mainframe, but the fact is that they are doing it > despite anything I might say or do. Believe me that putting people to work > on implementing "/" and "*/" in each parmlib member is NOT going to make it > into the line items for a new release with higher priority work and reduced > staff size. I believe in holding IBM to a standard that they themselves developed. I shudder to think that each parmlib member will have it own syntax. This goes agains every thing that IBM espouses. I will be long gone and I still think that this will be a dangerous precedent. As I said in my previous email, I have had to do updates to parmlib on the fly as a fellow sysprog forgot a comma and all of a sudden VTAM would not come up nor CICS due to an APF issue because of a stupid missing comma. Luckily I never made the mistake. > > Before I wrote up the requirements, I did a thorough study of the Parmlib > members and found that about half allow '*' in the first position. Because > different departments work on each Parmlib member, I had to write up a > separate requirement for each one, and it would have taken years (if ever) to > get them all changed. Then Peter Relson, who wears many hats and is trusted > by everyone in IBM, offered to do all the coding if he could implement the > '*' version because, obviously, it's the least amount of coding (if a = '*' > then bypass). I said that it would meet my requirements, the MVSE > Requirements committee agreed, and he had it done a week later. If we had > forced IBM to do it the "right way", it wouldn't be done today. At least now > there is an option to put comments in the Parmlib members that didn't have > them. Then write a requirement that *ALL* parmlib members must use the same syntax. That allows IBM to come up with one standard. It shouldn't be up to the users to fight over syntax on each member. I have seen (and IBM agreed to) several global requirements (like the syntax for parmlib idea) that IBM agreed to and with a two GUIDE meetings it was accepted. The problem is I don’t remember which one it was (its been 20+ years) :( > > And as my first email suggested, I think it would make a lot of sense for > people to add a comment box at the top of every Parmlib member that includes > not only an example of comments, but provides a place to put comments. You > can save newbies a lot of trouble (and down time) in the future. Sorry I don’t buy off on that. Besides a *LOT* of people just copy what comes in the servpac now days. It dangerous to accept that people are going to read comments first. That is why IBM doc is pretty much world class (until OMVS came along that is) > > I think this is just one of many compromises that we'll need to make with a > reduced IBM staff, but I'd rather work within the system and get some things > accomplished. (I could only wish our political parties could do the same.) > ;-) Documentation (good) is an IBM mainstay. Changing the rules for each member will let the CA’s of the world do their own thing and we will be left with no standards. > > All my best, > Cheryl Standardization is a good thing as it allow sysprogs to update every member the same way. Changing the standard (such as it is) is just asking for a catastrophe. > > ————————SNIP------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
