Hallo David!

 DN> It is indeed open to the customer about whom IBM doesn't care. Murray 
 DN> Lesser and I are just such customers.

 DN> You can register at teampli{at}vnet.ibm.com.

Hmm, does the team have a web page or some other source of information?
Like what are the teams goals and actions, what benefits does one have from
being in the team, what are a member's duties, etc.?  Though I like what I
have seen from PL/I (resp. PL.8) so far, I don't know if this really is a
reason for me to enter a PL/I team. But I will pass on the information
about the team, I think some people over here would find it quite
interesting.

 DN> I am not familiar with PL.8. It would seem to target the mainframe 
 DN> CPU's if it is for VM/CMS. That would make it rather off-topic for an 
 DN> OS/2 programming echo.

Of course it is completely off topic here, be it only for the fact that
there was never a product called PL.8 sold to the external world. Which
also explains that you can't know it, since you said you are not an IBMer
:-). PL.8 is merely being used inside IBM for internal purposes with
specific requirements that can't be met by either PL/I or PL/X, but which I
am probably not allowed to talk about (those silly non-disclosure thinkgs,
you know ...). That's why originally I only mentioned it as a PL/I
derivative.

But you are right in guessing that the current implementation is indeed
targeted at the S/370 / 390 architecture, though the original design also
covers ROMP and Motorola architectures, and it is not unimaginable, though
very far-fetched, to create OS/2 programs with it.

Well, if anybody who is working with PL.8 reads this echo, I would be glad
if he wrote me a netmail, but otherwise, let's end the discussion about it.

 DN> For most marketing types, the future means within the current sales 
 DN> cycle. This is different from the view used by "old IBM",
but it is one we
 DN> have to suffer. The only redeeming feature is that the entrenched products
 DN> they are trying to kill will probably outlive the marketeer's tenure in 
 DN> his job.

Let's hope so. The fact how mainframes have been revived in the last years
seems to speak in favour of this hope. 

 DN> That's the nice thing about "wingtip wonders": they don't usually 
 DN> stay very long.

:-)

Viele Gr��e,
Tobias

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