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My thanks to all who have expressed interest in the Survey. I had
described this about three months ago, and so I did not realize that
a review would be necessary, but the comments make it obvious that it is!
The Survey is to be distributed by the Assembler Committee of the
SHARE Languages Project, to be sent to all SHARE member sites.
We have assembled a list of about 4 dozen requirements against Assembler H,
including the SLAC mods, a few other enhancements, and improved hooks for
TEST environments. Our intent is to describe an Assembler language which
is designed for the 90s (with upward compatibility for existing Assembler H
code), and then to describe a decent TSO TEST environment, combining the
best features of the TSO TEST command with the kind of de{*filter*}s which have
been made available for PL/I and fortran (Yes, we know about the Cole
de{*filter*}, but many of us work in shops which, for shortsighted reasons,
will not purchase such an add on (Heck, where I work, they won't even let me
put the SLAC mods onto the Assembler!)).
John Ehrman (IBM) has worked closely with us; IBM has pointed out two things:
1. Assembler H is not going to be "opened up" more than once;
anything which we want, we had better ask for now!
2. IBM will NOT open up the Assembler, without a strong
business case that the product is being used,
and perhaps that improvements will cause more licenses
to be bought.
This second case is the rub. We have agreed to distribute and analyze
a survey to all SHARE membership (hence the reason that were not just going to
send this out over the net). SHARE will pay for printing and
mailing, and I (Dave W) will tabulate the results. Dave Andrews did a GREAT
job in putting the survey into Ventura form; Sam Golub (and I) designed the
initial drafts.
Judging by the response on this network in just one day,
I am distributing a version of the survey over the networks;
I will compile the result and present it as an addendum to the SHARE data.
Anyone who requested a copy, who forwards their responses by Email, will not
be sent a hard copy. Those (eg GUIDE) who want this in machine readable
form, please send me a separate note indicating this!
Please return the survey itself as indicated, to my APLVM.BITNET address.