On Jun 30, 2005, at 9:55 PM, Joe Zitzelberger wrote:
-----------------SNIP-----------------------------
I'm not sure if non-Cobol programmers would qualify as a
representative sample of people who should understand Cobol compiler
messages. If they do, then all messages should be annotated --
"programmer response: learn Cobol".
Again, I would ask, how much more documentation would you put on it?
The message points you to the exact byte in error and says "this looks
funny to me, but I'll trust you want it there and accept it as
written". What could you say about it? "Read the LRM" seems like the
only polite thing that could be written.
I was going to sit and watch this progress to the obvious (to me)
completion.
I am not sure where you find your cobol programmers Joe, but in the
midwest they tend to be (not all) lazy. Some of them couldn't code if
they were handed the code to insert .
I am not proficient in cobol and let me tell you I had a real (now
forgotten) cobol error message and it really didn't help that a cobol
programmer was asking me what the message meant. I did not have a clue.
I opened a ETR with all the information including snippets of code and
all the information that seemed relivent. I got a call back asking to
fax the listing (this was a decent size cobol program ).
ABout 2 days later (reasonable amount of time) I got an update to the
ETR saying the program had been written in HP cobol (IIRC) and it was
"too big" (NOT memory size) for the compiler. I wish I had kept a
record of the error message now. The error message was at best vague. I
asked that the message be documented better and was refused saying that
the messages are self explanatory. I countered with reason and they
basically told me to get lost.
I had to go back to the programmer and ask him to break up the program
he wanted to know how I had figured it out as the message was vague and
ambigious I just said because IBM said so.
I felt like a jerk because IBM refused to explain themselves. This (to
me was not a duty manager issue) I have been complaining to deaf ears
to this day about the lack of error messages and codes manual for
cobol.
The lack of a M & C for cobol is but a long list of issues that IBM has
lost it to the pc weenies. I seriously think IBM has lost it on several
fronts.
Ed
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