Phil, Dave, all, >From my perspective IBM certainly has transitioned from a company with a long-term vision (which proved quite profitable, eventually) to a standard public company. The event horizon has decreased from multiple years to end-of-month.
As always, the quick dollar to please the shareholders come at the expense of investments. In people, in quality, in everything. With minimal staffing IBM-ers do what they can. But what they can do has been limited by staff reductions. I've long been sorry to see IBM change from a special company into a large, yet run-of-the-mill company. And like most such companies, it is mainly the lawyers that run the company. Managers ask for legal advice to cover their back end. But lawyers are trained and hired to be paranoid and risk-averse. Entrepreneurship goes down the drain. Alas. But we still have mainframes, z/OS, zVSE, zVM, zTPF, Hercules, and z390. What a wealth to enjoy! I'm still grateful to the IBM-ers who created all this. I cannot help myself, but love it! Kind regards & happy programming, Abe === On 11/08/2025 18:10, Phil Smith III wrote: > I have to wonder if any of this is due to loss of tribal knowledge/coherence. > IBM used to have lots of standards for things, with SWAT teams to enforce > them (ok, not quite, but they WERE taken quite seriously). Nowadays that > seems to be much less true, and I have to wonder if these apparent > inconsistencies might be explained that simply. > > "Never assume a conspiracy where..." dept! > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of > David Cole > Sent: Monday, August 11, 2025 12:05 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Why LLC? Why not LLB? > > WRT "some vetting such as, how likely is it that this name is already in use > [... in a] customer macro?" > > Hmmm, I dunno. I wonder how many customers had to change their MSG macros to > get out of the way of MULTIPLY SINGLE (64). > > > > On the other hand, if they had continued the pattern of CLIB and > CLIJ, then CLFIT would not have had an F in it. > > > Dave > > > > > > At 8/9/2025 08:09 AM, Peter Relson wrote: > >>> <snip>I wonder if the hardware guys assign the mnemonic, or if the assembler >>> developers assign it? (Based on some of the names, I am betting the >>> hardware guys.)</snip> >> The system architecture folks assign, >> with some vetting such as "how likely is it that this name is already in use >> as an IBM or >> customer macro?". >> The assembler folks may "add". >> Peter Relson >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
