On Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 01:04:31PM -0500, Walt Farrell ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > >> "Eight character tokenization is Mickey Mouse" - suggested for SHARE > >> in Anaheim. > >> > > Likewise so for z/OS data set name qualifiers. And there it's > > an artificial and senseless limitation, persisting only because > > of inertia. > > Possibly inertia, but more likely because of the huge amount of code > that would need to be rewritten in both IBM and vendor products, and > possibly customer applications.
Let's distinguish between "huge number of affected programs" and "huge amount of code that would need to be rewritten." > A subset of the affected IBM code I can think of off the top of my head > includes JCL processing, allocation, JES, DFDSS, catalog management, > TSO/E, and RACF. And the modifications may be non-trivial in some cases. No, the changes are all trivial. All that needs to be done is implement what I submitted a formal REQUEST for (I think that was the term at that time) about 18 years ago: Provide a single system subroutine to do dsname validation. Make it an installation-replaceable component, provided in source form. Now all the vendors including IBM change their "huge" number of programs by *deleting* all of their dsname checking code, replacing it with a simple call to the system subroutine. Duh, this is the way it should have been done from day 0. In terms of user acceptance of different operating systems, this may seem irrelevant but it's actually a big deal for a number of end users. IBM's intransigence on this issue hurts IBM more than IBM can possibly understand. Clearly, or they'd stop justifying not doing this, and just do it. /Leonard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
