20 Feb
2015
20 Feb
'15
1:26 a.m.
I don't know about on MVS but on VM there is a comprehensive system which is
fully integrated with the editor XEDIT. You do have to create a reference
for each change, but once that's done you can just edit away and the editor
maintains a separate file of changes for that module.
One major problem with the system is that it only works for card images , so
columns 73-80 are used as sequence numbers. When a deck has to be
re-sequenced a kind of madness ensues.
Dave
G4UGM
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck
Guzis
Sent: 20 February 2015 07:36
To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-
Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Pascal not considered harmful - was Re: Rich kids are into
COBOL
On 02/19/2015 08:23 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
Nope. It was (and still is) how I write code
(sit down and compose at
the keyboard). One of my old bosses at IBM once said "Yea, Guy just
waves his hands over the keyboard and programs come out".
That would have been impossible in my case, unless I had the most
prodigious eidetic memory in history.
Writing code almost always involved using an on-disk or -tape source code
library. Even if it was new code, there were significant advantages to
creating a library then modifying it as one progressed.
One would typically work with a bound listing or listings and work out the
control system directives to update the existing code base.
Remember, this was in the day of batch processing with almost no access to
terminals. Everything happened on the keypunch.
So for one to remember all of the correction set IDs and sequence numbers
for a group of programs or system programs would be more than impressive-
-it'd probably merit a vivisection.
Here was one SCCS utility, UPDATE, used at CDC:
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-
stuttgart.de/pdf/cdc/cyber/software/60342500H_UPDATE_Reference_Jan78
.pdf
Another was MODIFY, used on KRONOS, but basically the same functionality
as UPDATE.
So IBM had no SCCS for their system code? That's mind-boggling.
--Chuck