Excerpted from message dated 01-16-96, David Noon to Murray Lesser:

DN>I think C Set ++ has LINK386 options hard-coded, so getting it to use
  >ILINK could be a challenge. However, you can always edit a makefile
  >for C Set ++.

DN>                                ... [ILINK is] included in
  >Visual Age C++ and COBOL. Indeed, the reason for ILINK's existance is
  >to try to cut down the code bloat resulting from large VFT's in C++.

Hi David--

    I don't think I'll bother going the makefile route.  I never learned
C++ (too complicated for this bear of little brain).  Anyway, since
learning about the existence of PL/I for OS/2, I use C only for writing
external function DLLs for REXX.

DN>                                           ... I am planning to
  >rewrite ... to encapsulate the OS/2 API inside PL/I statements. I
  >have given up hope of decent %include files from IBM. 

    I don't really understand what you mean by "encapsulate" in this
sense.  In the PL/I utilities I have written, I have found it easier to
declare the API calls as "external entry" in the program than to fight
the %include files, but I don't feel that is entirely what you have in
mind.  As I remember, you were going to write an essay on the subject
for "The PL/I Connection."  When might we expect it?

    If you are going to write a new API-call library, I hope you will
have the kindness to make it shareware.  I would pay up to $100 (US) to
register it, if the registration includes a printed manual.  If you need
further inducement, you probably could drum up another customer by
advertising in the IBM PCC BBS Programming conference!

DN>One should always regard UNSPEC() as a last resort. (Well, second
  >last, if you count calling assembler code.)

    Don't knock called assembler code!  I bought my PS/2 model 80-A71
(complete with buggy Intel 80386) in 1988 with the well-gotten gains
from my third book on enhancing compiled BASIC with assembled
procedures.  (Unfortunately, the programs described therein won't run in
an OS/2 VDM without drastic modification!)

DN>When one analyses someone else's PL/I, the first thing to check is
  >excessive use of UNSPEC(). It is a double-edged implement of the
  >sharpest kind.

    There is a double-edged tag line in there somewhere.  I'll have to
think about it.

     All the best,

          --Murray

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 * MR/2 2.25 #120 * Which direction is forward?
           
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