[Info-vax] VMS documentation, was: Re: Special deals on Tape Drives

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 3/14/22 09:58, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-03-12, abrsvc <dansabrservices at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> It seems to me that we need to differentiate between the documentation being difficult or the information documented being difficult.  From your own posting you state that descriptors are difficult.  OK (not to me but...) if that TOPIC is difficult, it has nothing to do with the documentation unless the explanation needs further edits to make it more clear.  If the topic is difficult to understand, take a class and ask questions from someone that can provide other examples or walk you through it.  Stating that the Linux/Unix stuff is better because it is hifdden behind easier interfaces, avoids the problem not solve it.
> 
> I don't find VMS descriptors difficult because I have been used to them
> since the 1990s. However, they are complex with all the variants they
> offer and I can easily see newcomers being overwhelmed by the mass of
> detail while getting used to the rest of VMS at the same time.
> 
> Try to consider, as a VMS person, being asked to learn how to work with
> z/OS and write software for it. An experienced z/OS person will not have
> a problem because they are used to it. A newcomer to z/OS, OTOH, will see
> all the strange new concepts and ways of doing things that they have never
> encountered before and could easily be lost in a mass of detail.
> 

Not really.  I hadn't touched an IBM Mainframe since the DOS/E VM370
days and had no problem doing the challenges on the Mastering the
Mainframe program just a couple weeks ago.  The hardest parts had to
do with stuff they use that runs on Linux.  All the z/OS stuff was a
piece of cake.

> That feeling is exactly the same feeling that people new to VMS could
> easily feel when they are exposed to an operating system with concepts
> and ways of doing things they have never seen before.

I still think learning VMS is harder.  I don't think it needs to be, but
it is.

bill