Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative)
I work regularly with Steve. It is, and has been, a please and a delight. I've always respected his views, many of which I agree with. Sharuff smo...@uk.ibm.com Date:Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:35:36 -0400 From:Tony Thigpen t...@vse2pdf.com Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) There is just so much wrong with several things you mentioned. But, based on your last statement, you don't care anyway, so I, for one, will not bother. I just pity the poor people you work with. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Steve Hobson Sent: 07/22/2014 04:25 PM Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU
Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative)
Probably best to ignore certain individuals who rather seem to like to be insulting, but of course not personally. On the whole they don't do much for most discussions, other than beating their own drum. I think Steve is talking about different people/groups basically doing their own thing and ending up with lots of probably undocumented little macros, and I agree that that is worse than useless for the wider world. OTOH one can develop suites of macros to implement higher level functions, frameworks etc. which if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines can be very useful for larger developments. Where would we be without IBM system macros, after all? One can extend them with further really useful functionality and save a lot of repetitive development effort. -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] Im Auftrag von Sharuff Morsa3 Gesendet: Mittwoch, 23. Juli 2014 11:36 An: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Betreff: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) I work regularly with Steve. It is, and has been, a please and a delight. I've always respected his views, many of which I agree with. Sharuff smo...@uk.ibm.com Date:Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:35:36 -0400 From:Tony Thigpen t...@vse2pdf.com Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) There is just so much wrong with several things you mentioned. But, based on your last statement, you don't care anyway, so I, for one, will not bother. I just pity the poor people you work with. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Steve Hobson Sent: 07/22/2014 04:25 PM Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU
Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative)
And there is the rub: ... if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines. Too many shops have no such support system in place, nor the requisite team to perform the documentation and maintenance. IOW no one wants to pay for a programmers' tools team. I have never understood why there is so little support for a tools team when the payback in productivity and speed-to-market (which can certainly be measured in real money) is so pronounced. Peter -Original Message- From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of David Stokes Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 5:56 AM To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) Probably best to ignore certain individuals who rather seem to like to be insulting, but of course not personally. On the whole they don't do much for most discussions, other than beating their own drum. I think Steve is talking about different people/groups basically doing their own thing and ending up with lots of probably undocumented little macros, and I agree that that is worse than useless for the wider world. OTOH one can develop suites of macros to implement higher level functions, frameworks etc. which if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines can be very useful for larger developments. Where would we be without IBM system macros, after all? One can extend them with further really useful functionality and save a lot of repetitive development effort. -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] Im Auftrag von Sharuff Morsa3 Gesendet: Mittwoch, 23. Juli 2014 11:36 An: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Betreff: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) I work regularly with Steve. It is, and has been, a please and a delight. I've always respected his views, many of which I agree with. Sharuff Date:Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:35:36 -0400 From:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) There is just so much wrong with several things you mentioned. But, based on your last statement, you don't care anyway, so I, for one, will not bother. I just pity the poor people you work with. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Steve Hobson Sent: 07/22/2014 04:25 PM -- 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.
Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative)
I think you hit something on the head, but not what you expected. Why should there be a tools team? The main programmers know what they need and usually can write the tools they need. They can also maintain the doc. But, everybody wants someone else to do it. Good programmers want to be efficient. They like debugged macros. Most simple macros only need about 1 or 2 lines of doc at the front about their usage. If the macro name and the macro parms are named well, maybe not even that much. Remember, the programmer using the macro does understand the basics about macros and can review the code if he has a question. He can even update the comments when he is done. And all it takes for an index of macros is to put a spreadsheet on a shared network drive. Anytime a macro is added, or discovered, place an entry in the table. It does not take but a few seconds. Now days, everybody wants someone else to do it, so they don't perform even the simplest thing. The man-hours that could be saved by that same programmer reinventing the wheel would have more than covered the time it would have taken him to update a spreadsheet listing macros. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Farley, Peter x23353 Sent: 07/23/2014 09:55 AM And there is the rub: ... if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines. Too many shops have no such support system in place, nor the requisite team to perform the documentation and maintenance. IOW no one wants to pay for a programmers' tools team. I have never understood why there is so little support for a tools team when the payback in productivity and speed-to-market (which can certainly be measured in real money) is so pronounced. Peter -Original Message- From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of David Stokes Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 5:56 AM To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) Probably best to ignore certain individuals who rather seem to like to be insulting, but of course not personally. On the whole they don't do much for most discussions, other than beating their own drum. I think Steve is talking about different people/groups basically doing their own thing and ending up with lots of probably undocumented little macros, and I agree that that is worse than useless for the wider world. OTOH one can develop suites of macros to implement higher level functions, frameworks etc. which if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines can be very useful for larger developments. Where would we be without IBM system macros, after all? One can extend them with further really useful functionality and save a lot of repetitive development effort. -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] Im Auftrag von Sharuff Morsa3 Gesendet: Mittwoch, 23. Juli 2014 11:36 An: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Betreff: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) I work regularly with Steve. It is, and has been, a please and a delight. I've always respected his views, many of which I agree with. Sharuff Date:Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:35:36 -0400 From:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) There is just so much wrong with several things you mentioned. But, based on your last statement, you don't care anyway, so I, for one, will not bother. I just pity the poor people you work with. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Steve Hobson Sent: 07/22/2014 04:25 PM -- 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.
Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative)
I don't totally disagree with you, but the problem is that without good standards and some architectural concept behind them such small macros start to multiply, there are different versions, copies, recreation of existing things because someone didn't look (or care) that something was already there, and so on. At the end of the day if uncontrolled what happens is that each competent programmer decides to do his own thing and make his own set of helpful macros. I'm not recommending a lot of trivial macros anyway. -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] Im Auftrag von Tony Thigpen Gesendet: Mittwoch, 23. Juli 2014 16:13 An: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Betreff: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) I think you hit something on the head, but not what you expected. Why should there be a tools team? The main programmers know what they need and usually can write the tools they need. They can also maintain the doc. But, everybody wants someone else to do it. Good programmers want to be efficient. They like debugged macros. Most simple macros only need about 1 or 2 lines of doc at the front about their usage. If the macro name and the macro parms are named well, maybe not even that much. Remember, the programmer using the macro does understand the basics about macros and can review the code if he has a question. He can even update the comments when he is done. And all it takes for an index of macros is to put a spreadsheet on a shared network drive. Anytime a macro is added, or discovered, place an entry in the table. It does not take but a few seconds. Now days, everybody wants someone else to do it, so they don't perform even the simplest thing. The man-hours that could be saved by that same programmer reinventing the wheel would have more than covered the time it would have taken him to update a spreadsheet listing macros. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Farley, Peter x23353 Sent: 07/23/2014 09:55 AM And there is the rub: ... if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines. Too many shops have no such support system in place, nor the requisite team to perform the documentation and maintenance. IOW no one wants to pay for a programmers' tools team. I have never understood why there is so little support for a tools team when the payback in productivity and speed-to-market (which can certainly be measured in real money) is so pronounced. Peter -Original Message- From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of David Stokes Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 5:56 AM To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) Probably best to ignore certain individuals who rather seem to like to be insulting, but of course not personally. On the whole they don't do much for most discussions, other than beating their own drum. I think Steve is talking about different people/groups basically doing their own thing and ending up with lots of probably undocumented little macros, and I agree that that is worse than useless for the wider world. OTOH one can develop suites of macros to implement higher level functions, frameworks etc. which if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines can be very useful for larger developments. Where would we be without IBM system macros, after all? One can extend them with further really useful functionality and save a lot of repetitive development effort. -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] Im Auftrag von Sharuff Morsa3 Gesendet: Mittwoch, 23. Juli 2014 11:36 An: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Betreff: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) I work regularly with Steve. It is, and has been, a please and a delight. I've always respected his views, many of which I agree with. Sharuff Date:Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:35:36 -0400 From:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) There is just so much wrong with several things you mentioned. But, based on your last statement, you don't care anyway, so I, for one, will not bother. I just pity the poor people you work with. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Steve Hobson Sent: 07/22/2014 04:25 PM -- 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
Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative)
Where is the programmer manager during all this? Did he not bother to do even a basic code review? It looks like he did not control his people so things went down fast. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: David Stokes Sent: 07/23/2014 11:05 AM I don't totally disagree with you, but the problem is that without good standards and some architectural concept behind them such small macros start to multiply, there are different versions, copies, recreation of existing things because someone didn't look (or care) that something was already there, and so on. At the end of the day if uncontrolled what happens is that each competent programmer decides to do his own thing and make his own set of helpful macros. I'm not recommending a lot of trivial macros anyway. -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] Im Auftrag von Tony Thigpen Gesendet: Mittwoch, 23. Juli 2014 16:13 An: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Betreff: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) I think you hit something on the head, but not what you expected. Why should there be a tools team? The main programmers know what they need and usually can write the tools they need. They can also maintain the doc. But, everybody wants someone else to do it. Good programmers want to be efficient. They like debugged macros. Most simple macros only need about 1 or 2 lines of doc at the front about their usage. If the macro name and the macro parms are named well, maybe not even that much. Remember, the programmer using the macro does understand the basics about macros and can review the code if he has a question. He can even update the comments when he is done. And all it takes for an index of macros is to put a spreadsheet on a shared network drive. Anytime a macro is added, or discovered, place an entry in the table. It does not take but a few seconds. Now days, everybody wants someone else to do it, so they don't perform even the simplest thing. The man-hours that could be saved by that same programmer reinventing the wheel would have more than covered the time it would have taken him to update a spreadsheet listing macros. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Farley, Peter x23353 Sent: 07/23/2014 09:55 AM And there is the rub: ... if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines. Too many shops have no such support system in place, nor the requisite team to perform the documentation and maintenance. IOW no one wants to pay for a programmers' tools team. I have never understood why there is so little support for a tools team when the payback in productivity and speed-to-market (which can certainly be measured in real money) is so pronounced. Peter -Original Message- From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of David Stokes Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 5:56 AM To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) Probably best to ignore certain individuals who rather seem to like to be insulting, but of course not personally. On the whole they don't do much for most discussions, other than beating their own drum. I think Steve is talking about different people/groups basically doing their own thing and ending up with lots of probably undocumented little macros, and I agree that that is worse than useless for the wider world. OTOH one can develop suites of macros to implement higher level functions, frameworks etc. which if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines can be very useful for larger developments. Where would we be without IBM system macros, after all? One can extend them with further really useful functionality and save a lot of repetitive development effort. -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] Im Auftrag von Sharuff Morsa3 Gesendet: Mittwoch, 23. Juli 2014 11:36 An: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Betreff: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) I work regularly with Steve. It is, and has been, a please and a delight. I've always respected his views, many of which I agree with. Sharuff Date:Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:35:36 -0400 From:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) There is just so much wrong with several things you mentioned. But, based on your last statement, you don't care anyway, so I, for one, will not bother. I just pity the poor people you work with. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Steve Hobson Sent: 07/22/2014 04:25 PM -- 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
Re: Tools Teams [was: Macros]
I would contend that in a large shop (hundreds of programmers) with geographically and time-zone dispersed development teams and ever-tightening project schedules, a central tools team and tool support system is needed. Otherwise there is no synergy towards the ultimate business goal of delivering quality products that clients want to use, on time and with zero defects. But, I respect your POV. As the perl mongers say, TMTOWTDI. Peter -Original Message- From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Tony Thigpen Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 10:13 AM To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) I think you hit something on the head, but not what you expected. Why should there be a tools team? The main programmers know what they need and usually can write the tools they need. They can also maintain the doc. But, everybody wants someone else to do it. Good programmers want to be efficient. They like debugged macros. Most simple macros only need about 1 or 2 lines of doc at the front about their usage. If the macro name and the macro parms are named well, maybe not even that much. Remember, the programmer using the macro does understand the basics about macros and can review the code if he has a question. He can even update the comments when he is done. And all it takes for an index of macros is to put a spreadsheet on a shared network drive. Anytime a macro is added, or discovered, place an entry in the table. It does not take but a few seconds. Now days, everybody wants someone else to do it, so they don't perform even the simplest thing. The man-hours that could be saved by that same programmer reinventing the wheel would have more than covered the time it would have taken him to update a spreadsheet listing macros. Tony Thigpen -Original Message - From: Farley, Peter x23353 Sent: 07/23/2014 09:55 AM And there is the rub: ... if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines. Too many shops have no such support system in place, nor the requisite team to perform the documentation and maintenance. IOW no one wants to pay for a programmers' tools team. I have never understood why there is so little support for a tools team when the payback in productivity and speed-to-market (which can certainly be measured in real money) is so pronounced. Peter -Original Message- From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of David Stokes Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 5:56 AM To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) Probably best to ignore certain individuals who rather seem to like to be insulting, but of course not personally. On the whole they don't do much for most discussions, other than beating their own drum. I think Steve is talking about different people/groups basically doing their own thing and ending up with lots of probably undocumented little macros, and I agree that that is worse than useless for the wider world. OTOH one can develop suites of macros to implement higher level functions, frameworks etc. which if documented, maintained and supported by training and management guidelines can be very useful for larger developments. Where would we be without IBM system macros, after all? One can extend them with further really useful functionality and save a lot of repetitive development effort. -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [mailto:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] Im Auftrag von Sharuff Morsa3 Gesendet: Mittwoch, 23. Juli 2014 11:36 An: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Betreff: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) I work regularly with Steve. It is, and has been, a please and a delight. I've always respected his views, many of which I agree with. Sharuff Date:Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:35:36 -0400 From:ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Macros -- was: EDit mask for floating minus (negative) There is just so much wrong with several things you mentioned. But, based on your last statement, you don't care anyway, so I, for one, will not bother. I just pity the poor people you work with. Tony Thigpen -- 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.
Re: Tools Teams [was: Macros]
IBM Mainframe Assembler List ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU wrote on 07/23/2014 11:38:50 AM: I would contend that in a large shop (hundreds of programmers) with geographically and time-zone dispersed development teams and ever- tightening project schedules, a central tools team and tool support system is needed. Otherwise there is no synergy towards the ultimate business goal of delivering quality products that clients want to use, on time and with zero defects. Peter Well said Peter. But the unfortunate and incinvenient truth is that a number of factors tend to subvert the ideal which you outline above. One such factor is internal politics. I worked for over a decade in a very small development/support group for a small but mission critical area. All technical persons were former system programmers and/or developers of system level software for vendors on multiple hardware and software. The majority of the code we had responsibility for was assembler, except the online CICS Cobol. We did not have the visibility within the corporation to effect change outside our area. We could report issues w/tools, including macros, but could not drive the changes needed. Our usual response was to copy the source of the tool and make fixes and enhancements to the copy. Sometimes the tool was repaired, sometime not. When the fixes were made, we tended not to use the fixed tool, but our copy. Ironically, as I was transitioning out of the group, tech support approached us to help study and repair some systematic issues with application jobs. Which showed we had visibility and confidence where we had been able to create it. If management does not have the vision, those managed will tend to act blindly. So it goes. Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. - John F. Kennedy Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride. - Bette Davis (as character Margo Channing) _All About Eve_1950 Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. - H. H. Williams Our greatest danger in life is in permitting the urgent things to crowd out the important. - Charles E. Hummel Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur. - The information contained in this communication (including any attachments hereto) is confidential and is intended solely for the personal and confidential use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this communication in error and that any review, dissemination, copying, or unauthorized use of this information, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail, and delete the original message. Thank you
