Re: Suggestion: File to use when compile

[Douglas Handy <dhandy@xxxxxxxxx>]

Scott,

> That's nice... but then outside consultants who work on our system
> wouldn't be familiar with them.  New programmers we hire wouldn't be
> familiar.  

This to me is a red herring.  How long does it take to tell new people
working on your system that instead of using option 14, you use some
other PDM command (whether Z1 or CP or in my case, MK for Make which
invokes my CMPSRC (Compile Source) command)?

For someone who is not already familiar with such a utility, hopefully
they already are in the habit of visually checking the top of the
source for comments about any special keyword values which must be
used, overrides which must be in place, etc.  At that point, they'd
see the special prefixes on the comments, not to mention a standard
comment I have which preceds them referring them to the documentation
for my CMPSRC utility.

> But, if IBM included these things with the compilers, I wouldn't have to.

I'm certainly not against IBM adding it -- it is long overdue.  When
and if IBM does so, I'll write a program to go through all source
members and convert my comments into the IBM methodolgy.

But in the mean time, using some other automated solution is the only
way to fly in my book.  Not only is it less tedious or error-prone
during compile/debug development cycles, but more importantly it is
extremely helpful when doing mass compiles (eg all programs which
access the customer master file).

Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for IBM adding it.  But the concept is
*so* useful (and relatively easy) that there simply is no reason to
wait for IBM.  Many of us have enjoyed this capability for years.  In
fact, in 1996 when I wrote mine, I wondered why I waited so long.

Doug