I started with SOAP 2, for which I don't feel the faintest tinge of nostalgia, although I liked the program points.
I miss the QUAL statement (local symbols) in IBMAP, but in most regards HLASM is head and shoulders above any other assembler I've used. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List <ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Rupert Reynolds <rreyno...@cix.co.uk> Sent: Wednesday, February 5, 2025 4:23 PM To: ASSEMBLER-LIST@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Jonathan Scott has retired from IBM HLASM team External Message: Use Caution Thanks for all you have done, and have a happy retirement! Sigh... I started with Assembler H (IEV90) on MVS, and later a mixture of HLASM and IFOX00 (X or XF, I always forget which), for various reasons, including Volker Bandke's Tur(n)key MVS CD. This assembler is so good that compilers could learn from its level of usability. To this day, my small business runs on MVS, programmed mostly in assembly (apart from a few bits in Rexx due to its friendly string-handling). To quote my old-school mentor "If God programs, he or she does it in IBM assembly". Roops On Wed, 5 Feb 2025, 20:31 Jonathan Scott, <jonathan.scott...@gmail.com> wrote: > Today, 5th February 2025, was my last day with IBM, where I was HLASM and > Toolkit Development and Support Team Leader. > > > > I’ve been working in Assembler for over 51 years, since January 1974 (when > I > was a pre-university student with IBM). After working with Altergo > Software > in London and then at the Gothenburg Universities Computing centre (GUC) in > Sweden (also known in Swedish as Göteborgs Datacentral, GD), I returned to > IBM in September 1987, where I’ve been for over 37 years, working on CICS, > MQ and (among other things) HLASM, programming in Assembler and IBM’s PL/X, > and writing tools using REXX and CMS/TSO Pipelines. I also had the > privilege of working with Dr John Ehrman in various discussions about HLASM > design and later helping him to support legacy products such as the VS > Fortran compiler, while he was putting together his Assembler text. > > > > I was appointed as HLASM team leader in June 2017, and as an advanced user > of Assembler, I was pleased to be able to implement various HLASM > enhancements, including: > > > > * Enhancements to AINSERT and lookahead to improve the usability of > AINSERT and support the use of sequence symbols in the inserted code > * Capability to generate ELF64 for Linux, optionally via GOFF (to > support long external names) > * Capability to execute the assembler natively under 64-bit Linux > * USING addressability limits which apply both to short and long > displacements > * DROP by address, which can drop a dependent USING > * Negative decimal self-defining terms > * ASCII and Unicode self-defining terms > * Flexible code page support, with control of EBCDIC to ASCII > conversion and UTF-8 constants, for example for EBCDIC accented characters > > > > I expect those who follow this list can think of some other things we have > fixed or improved over the years, often in response to excellent > suggestions > on this list! > > > > I’m now looking forward to having more time to play instrumental music > (piano, violin and viola) and resume my long-interrupted study of > theoretical physics. However, I’m still interested in assembler and I > intend to continue to follow this list and respond when I can, although I > no > longer have access to any IBM internal resources so I can’t test my guesses > before replying as I have done in the past. > > > > The IBM HLASM and Toolkit team is now being led by Ramesh Padmanabha (in > Canada – this is a somewhat geographically dispersed team), who also > follows > this list (as do various other IBMers). They still have a long list of > requirements and suggestions, many of which have already been at least > partly prototyped, so I hope to see further useful enhancements in the > future. > > > > Jonathan Scott > > (near Hursley, UK) > > > > > > >
