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From: Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: The Design of Design
Date: Wed, 8 May 2024 09:38:41 -0000 (UTC)
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Stephen Fuld <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> schrieb:
> Thomas Koenig wrote:

>> Only the team that made JCL, it seems.
>
>
> Just as an aside, though this thread may be somewhat OT, I consider it
> fun and interesting.
>
> I am not sure exactly what he is saying here.  By JCL, does he mean
> just the syntax of the language,

His main criticism is that the design team failed to notice that
JCL was, in fact, a programming language, that the design team
thought of it as "just a few cards for job control".  This led to
attributes such as DISP doing what he called "verbish things",
i.e. commands, dependence on card formats, a syntax similar to,
but incompatible with, the S/360 assembler, insufficient control
structures etc.

He did not criticize the OS itself too much, with its complicated
allocation stategies etc, mostly some remarks on the file structure
which he says could have been simplified.