On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Chris Mason <[email protected]>wrote:
> Charles > > <snip>It was because of your earlier posts on automation topics that I > bothered to > poke my nose in here and it was only when I saw what might be a bit of > irritation with the static nature of macro coding, even the "E" and "L" - > or > perhaps especially because of the "E" and "L" form - that I feel prompted > to > suggest a step further than the course proposed by Chris Craddock. > > This step is, having studied the "E" and "L" forms of the macro, ditch the > pesky things and just code what is necessary in raw - but superbly > documented as always, of course - instructions - with perhaps a comment box > surrounding something like the macro text that you would have coded had it > been dynamic enough.[1] > I think you have missed the point I was making about the WTO interface. I do NOT advocate ditching formal interfaces in general. In fact, the exact opposite is true. I generally advocate for using the official macro interfaces for calling system services. Doing it "by hand" is error prone and certainly not worth the effort if you have to do it more than once. However there are a few egregious cases where the official interface is (a) so old and crufty that it is unreasonably difficult to use for the general case - the WTO interface we were discussing is a classic example, or (b) is so complicated that it is essentially unusable by mere mortals - many of the XES and LOGR interfaces would fall into that category. I would probably concede your point about the xxxCB macros too, although I've seen the VSAM versions used extensively in products I've been associated with and once you get the gist of them they aren't that onerous. In those "too hard for mere mortals" cases I provide additional macro infrastructure or kinder-gentler callable service interfaces so that other developers don't have to wrestle with the ugly use cases. But even in those cases I generally use the official macro interface under the covers unless there is a compelling reason not to. -- This email might be from the artist formerly known as CC (or not) You be the judge. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
