On Thursday, 1994-09-01  Murray Lesser wrote to Eric Schilke about
"Pl/I" as follows:

ML>     I have the demo PL/I kit from DevCon and the "OS2 Online Book
ML> Collection" CD-ROM, which has some PL/I manuals.  I thought it
ML> might be interesting to learn enough PL/I to write REXX "extended
ML> function" DLLs in PL/I instead of in C.  However, learning a
ML> language from online manuals is more than I can face (they are
ML> almost as useless as reference materials, but [perhaps] better than
ML> no documentation at all).
ML> 
ML>     Have you run across a suitable tutorial text on "elementary
PL/I?" I
ML> suppose it is too much to ask for something having the tone of
ML> Kernighan and Ritchie's textbook on using C.

Hi Murray,

The manuals on the Online Bookshelf CD-ROM are very old. They do not
address the multi-threading version of the run-time library.

If you buy PL/I for OS/2 "Personal Edition" or "Professional
Edition"
(there is a BIG difference in price) you will receive much newer
hard-copy manuals with the product. There is also sample code included
with the retail product. You will need to buy the PL/I Toolkit as well
to get the REXX interface (and PM interface, etc.) include files. I
believe IBM is making the PL/I range of products available through
Indelible Blue and/or The Corner Store, so RSN you should not have to
pay IBM's list price.

The most recent introductory text I have seen on PL/I was published in
about 1978 or 1979. Its author was Robin A. Vowells (he taught me PL/I
at college, some 20+ years ago). I think it was published by MacMillan
- most of the lecturers at my college who published books did so
through MacMillan's.

If you need any help with PL/I syntax and semantics, I am more than
willing to assist you or anybody else and can be reached here on
FidoNet, on the IBM PCC BBS, or you can use Section 6 of OS2DF1 on
Compuserve to address problems directly to IBM Santa Teresa Labs (the
developers of the PL/I compiler).

Regards

Dave

___
 X KWQ/2 1.2g X PL/I: Understatement is the purest form of eloquence.

--- Maximus/2 2.01wb