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Date:	Sun, 15 Feb 2004 14:37:19 PST8
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	< "scoug-programming@scoug.com" > scoug-programming@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: PL/I most important statement (was: call(TZ) ? - PL/I)

Content Type: text/plain

"...It wasn't a class, Lynn. It was one of the IBM books. Since
IBM was heavily pushing PL/I at the time, they used their best
people as writers. ..."

Wrong. Apparently you are absolutely unaware of how IBM
picks writers for their manuals, especially their red books.
Having been selected at one time to write a general
information manual on an about-to-be-announced version of
UNIX on an IBM mainframe and working intensely with others
who only function was manual writing for IBM I can speak to
this with some authority.

I was selected because I knew something about it, enough to
know I didn't like it. Nevertheless my job was to put as
positive a spin on it as possible, which I did. So well in fact
that others knowing my distaste for all things UNIX
complimented me by saying that from my writing they would
never have guessed my true feelings.

I once came close to another opportunity based on my having
successfully sold and installed the entire Western Region's
quota of the IBM Data Dictionary. It was a $50,000 toss up
between essentially writing about how I used its features to
successfully produce its value to the clients and producing a
manual on naming conventions. The naming conventions won.

Perhaps the worst instance of author selection was allowing
the "inventors" of IBM's HIPO documentation method, which
became an anchor on any accounts neck who attempted to
use it, to write a manual on it. They didn't understand what
they were doing or why they were doing it.

That sits right up there with the folks in IBM Research Center
in Yorktown who wanted to write an APL compiler using
Fortran.

You got me started unfortunately, Peter, with this begin-end
thing. Don't get me started on IBM manuals.

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