Why does IBM use Q for all it's libaries
Don McArthur
will be my responsibility to operate the system. I'm currently at IBM taking
courses :) I've been asking all the trainers why does IBM use the letter Q
for all the system libraries and non of them new the answer. So I was
wondering if anyone here does.
Just really curious.
Don
Bill Wragg
who knows as long as they are consistemt...
Good Lick with new system.
Bill
"Don McArthur" <bi...@eldan.com> wrote in message
news:HyRx5.28813$m7.13...@news3.rdc1.on.home.com...
Bernard Bandiera
Quality. And obviously, it's the truth because of the robustness of both the
machine and the OS...
Don McArthur wrote:
>
> My company is having an AS/400 installed to run JDE. As the network admin it
> will be my responsibility to operate the system. I'm currently at IBM taking
> courses :) I've been asking all the trainers why does IBM use the letter Q
> for all the system libraries and non of them new the answer. So I was
> wondering if anyone here does.
> Just really curious.
> Don
--
Bernard Bandiera - ADP GSI D.O. Eybens - France
mailto:Bernard....@fr.adp.com
Paul Nicolay
There need to be a distinction, a preferrably one that is unlikely to be
used by users, hence the Q (but it could have been X or Y as well I guess).
Regards,
Paul
---------------
Don McArthur wrote in message ...
My company is having an AS/400 installed to run JDE. As the network admin it
will be my responsibility to operate the system. I'm currently at IBM taking
courses :) I've been asking all the trainers why does IBM use the letter Q
for all the system libraries and non of them new the answer. So I was
wondering if anyone here does.
Just really curious.
Don
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Frank Shafran
They took a lot of flack from this as Americans who allways had their
minds on the $ sign. Not wanting to offend anyone, when the System/38
came out an analysis showed that Q would create the least amount
of recongnizable words in any language.
Frank
Karl Hanson
>
> My company is having an AS/400 installed to run JDE. As the network admin it
> will be my responsibility to operate the system. I'm currently at IBM taking
> courses :) I've been asking all the trainers why does IBM use the letter Q
> for all the system libraries and non of them new the answer. So I was
> wondering if anyone here does.
This strategy was inherited from the S/38, and is more widespread than
just IBM library objects. IIRC, one goal was to minimize intrusion into
the customer object namespace. The thought was that the letter Q would
be one of the least used first characters when naming application
objects, and is easier to type than special characters like $ or @.
--
Karl Hanson
Richard Jackson
wrote:
It started on the System/38.
I checked my copy of IBM System/38 Technical Developments. I didn't
find the reason. Functions Reference won't have this answer but
System Concepts might. My copy is in my garage so I didn't look
there. Someone could ask Glenn Henry, Dick Bains, Frank Soltis, Ron
Fess, Wayne Evans, Jim Sloan, George Timms, Rick Turner, or one of the
dozens of other people that worked on the system during its genesis.
When I started to work on this platform in January 1981, I was told by
someone at the lab, I think that it was Doug Anderson, that Q was
selected because it had the fewest number of words in the dictionary
and was therefore the least likely to conflict with some customer
program naming scheme.
For what its worth.
Richard Jackson
http://www.richardjacksonltd.com/
Mailto://richard...@richardjackson.net
Voice: 303 808 8058
Fax: 303 663 4325
Daniel Hicks
>
> My company is having an AS/400 installed to run JDE. As the network admin it
> will be my responsibility to operate the system. I'm currently at IBM taking
> courses :) I've been asking all the trainers why does IBM use the letter Q
> for all the system libraries and non of them new the answer. So I was
> wondering if anyone here does.
> Don
Q is an unlikely letter to be used by anyone else. Using the Q prefix
reduces the likelihood of a name conflict with user code.
FWIW, it's not just the libraries that are prefixed with Q. Practically
all the program names begin with Q as well, as do many other object
names. The next two letters generally identify the component within XPF
that "owns" the object.
$ (US dollar sign) or # (pig pen) had been used on other systems to
distinguish system-owned names from user-defined names, but they are
"national characters" that print differently in different countries,
plus they have special meaning in many computer languages, causing
various compatibility problems.
Charles R. Pence
> Back in the System/3 days IBM used $ for all their objects.
> They took a lot of flack from this as Americans who allways had their
> minds on the $ sign. Not wanting to offend anyone, when the System/38
> came out an analysis showed that Q would create the least amount
> of recongnizable words in any language.
A more obvious problem with "$" I think, is that its code point is variant;
effecting many difficulties in countries/languages other than USA/English.
Unfortunately allowed in object naming, doing so is very much discouraged.
Regards, Chuck
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