Re: FTP site for IBM i manuals?

I remember complaining when IBM dropped paper manuals for manuals on CD.

The first iteration of the CDs were pretty bad, but I thought they got
better, usability-wise, with each release.

Then IBM ditched CDs for web-based content. I complained then, as well. I
am trying to remember if they were PDFs or HTML (or ???)

Now, we're losing PDFs, and I'm complaining again. (I suppose my excuse
now, after all these years, is that I must be a grumpy, old curmudgeon.)
But it's been several years since v7r1 came out, and I still miss my CL
command manuals.

BTW, this place I started at a month ago still has a couple of shelves full
of v2 manuals. I'm thinking about borrowing some to prop up my monitors,
which sit too low on my desk and which have no height adjustment.

- Dan

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 10:02 AM, John Yeung <gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 8:01 AM, <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The problem with many manuals is that they are obsolete shortly after you
download them. I had too many people limiting their RPG code to whatever
was in their last printed manual. Had to stay late, and do a search and
destroy on those manuals.

I haven't opened a printed manual in years. But I do like and use
PDFs because they are formatted like books, and I personally find them
more readable than most Web pages. That's largely a matter of taste,
though.

As for obsolescence: To be fair, stuff that you'd likely look for in
manuals doesn't change THAT fast, particularly in the IBM midrange
world, and particularly *at your own workplace* if your core business
is not technology. Only two years ago, we were a V5R2 shop. It's not
like I could actually compile any of the newfangled stuff anyway. So
when it comes to printed manuals, if you have them at all, it's
reasonable to have ones that match whatever it is you are running.
For folks who like PDFs, if they download the appropriate ones, they
will typically be good for at least a few years.

John Y.