Re: User Index APIs - where find REAL reference material?

"
Hello Dan,

The answers were in the Object API manual on the softcopy CD.  I used the 
version for VRM410.  
I did verify some things in the other manuals I mentioned but here is the 
process I used.

I had to read the information for the creation attributes and then the 
information for adding 
entries to realise the relationship between the insert method and the creation 
attributes.

The manuals simply describe the functions, they generally don't discuss the 
actual use.  
Sometimes you'll find an example that helps explain things but most example 
code tends to be 
trivial (and that's not an IBM problem.  How many of the books on C discuss 
signal handling 
properly or show a function returning anything more complex than an int or 
float?  Java books 
are the just as bad ... nothing for the real world.)

Don't think that IBM is deliberately hiding things from customers.  The 
internal documentation 
is written in a similar style.  The advantage internal staff have is the 
ability to walk down 
the corridor and talk to the fellow who wrote the stuff.  "So Joe, how does 
this piece of crap 
you wrote actually work?"

You should have heard me swearing at IBM when the documentation for the Virtual 
Terminal APIs 
wasn't accurate and I spent an afternoon trying to find what was wrong with my 
code (Of 
course, I should have known better. I wrote it, how could it possibly be flawed 
:)

I think the "system's programmers" get to do all the fun stuff but if I knew 
someone who'd 
hire a good (if opinionated) AS/400 SysProg I'd be in the job!!!! :)  IBM make 
it too easy to 
run an AS/400 and most sites have no need of a SysProg (and wouldn't pay enough 
for one 
anyway).  If I could get paid what I think I'm worth to play with the AS/400 
internals ... 
Heaven, I'd be in heaven ...

I believe a SysProg and an AppProg think differently.  The SysProg thinks about 
the bits and 
bytes, the AppProg thinks about the business requirements.  The SysProg wants 
to know HOW it 
works, the AppProg just WANTS it to work.  Dean Asmussen has made the point 
before about 
techo's not knowing a chart of accounts from a packing slip.  I could learn 
that stuff but I 
don't enjoy it so why suffer the pain?

This is likely to be my last append.  My girlfriend thinks I need to start 
packing!

Regards,
Simon Coulter.

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//--- forwarded letter -------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Mon, 02 Aug 99 18:29:56 -0400
> From: "Dan Bale" <dbale@genfast.com>
> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Reply-To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject: Re: User Index APIs - where find REAL reference material?

> 
> 
> 
> Simon, thanks for your response.
> 
> >>This stuff isn't really that hard.<<
> Agreed!  But it would be nice to make informed decisions and get it right the
> first time instead of testing this or that and fiddling around with parameters
> because IBM didn't provide adequate documentation.  Time is short; I am a 
>father
> of three young children.  I will try to find the manuals you mentioned.
> 
> Thanks for answering the specific questions.
> 
> >>Well, my usual mantra of RTFM applies again.  The information is in the IBM
> manuals but needs to be nutted out.<<
> Are my specific questions answered somewhere in an IBM manual that exists on 
>the
> softcopy cd-rom?  In other words, you knew the answers to my questions because
> you first saw it in the manuals?  Or did you dete"mine this through trial and
> error?
> 
> >>Perhaps I find the IBM manuals easier to read than other people but they are
> intended for system programmer's.<<
> I can read IBM manuals just fine.  I just need to know where to look.  Again,
> I'll check out your references.
> 
> Tell me what a "system programmer" does on an AS/400.  Are these the ones that
> get to do all the "fun" stuff?  (Left that one wide open, you'll notice!)  Who
> hires AS/400 system programmers?
> 
> Hope you'll get this before you fly off to visit the queen!
> 
> -Dan Bale
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