> more consideration should have been given to usability If I were the product manager for z/OS, I probably would have thrown the tentative design out here on IBMMAIN for comment *before* it was "too late to make changes."
What a fabulous resource this list would be if used in that fashion: a hundred intelligent, experienced programmers willing to do volunteer software design for IBM. What a shame to let it go to waste. > I dislike sequence numbers anyway A completely different topic, but sequence numbers are obviously (I think. Am I wrong?) entirely a vestigial organ left from the days of punched cards. They were a lifesaver if you dropped your cards on the floor, and the compilers put out a warning if you loaded the cards into the reader in incorrect order. But do sequence numbers have a lick of value today? Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2013 7:33 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: 32760? (was: PARMDD?) On Sun, 7 Apr 2013 09:51:48 -0400, Peter Relson wrote: >>ISPF also supports sequence numbers for RECFM=VB; I hope that you're >>not saying that those are not stripped when FB sequence numbers are. > >That is exactly what I am saying. I suppose it comes down to: if it >hurts to do that, then don't do that. > I agree. I dislike sequence numbers anyway. >The rules will be documented. As with most things, you get to decide >what that implies to your usage. > I see three main levels of implementation quality. 1) The function is incomplete. 2) The Turing Tarpit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. -- Alan Perlis. 3) Functional completeness with user friendliness. The PARMDD rules, like much of JCL, (will) fall squarely in category (2). Circa 1964, there was an excuse: IBM was in a desperate rush to get OS/360 out the door and into revenue. Things _should_ be different in the 21st Century. z/OS is vastly more complex than OS/360 and proportionally more consideration should have been given to usability. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
