Dezhi Systems support site

When I went on TSO yesterday I saw a new message about available cataloged procedures for compiling PL/I and COBOL programs. The message ended with: "Use these procedures with appropriate overrides, do *NOT* copy them to your own libraries, and do *NOT* roll your own, as doing so is a valid reason to get yourself banned!".

I hope I am not coming across as sounding ignorant, but I am not sure what is meant by "do *NOT* roll your own". "ROLL"?

I have been using a simple JCL stream in my own JCL library to complie and link my PL/I programs for the over 4 years since I acquired my userid. Am I subject to being banned by continuing to use my own JCL? That would be quite extreme, given that my compile jobs have never caused any RACF issues or had any other negative impacts on the system.

Thank you

JK Zup

In the mainframe world, "roll your own," or sometimes RYO, refers to writing your own version of something.

in the 1980s, I spent several unhappy years supporting a RYO security system that was loosely based, as far as I could tell, on nothing, and a tape management system very loosely based on an early UCC-1 (now CA-1) system.

In some respects the tape management system was better; its catalog was a VSAM data set and used VSAM Global Shared Resources for most of its accesses. On the other hand there was no provision for multiple systems sharing the catalog. Late in my career at this site it was replaced with CA-1.

The security system was a disaster. I think it predated both the RACF and ACF2 systems. Its data set security model prevented the use of indexed VTOCs and System Managed Storage. Its password implementation was so bad I won't bother to tell you how bad it was. There was no provision for multiple systems.

The primary reason RYO replacements for language processor cataloged procedures are a bad idea is the replacement procedures do not reflect product updates, and often cause problems for this reason.

For what it's worth I, personally, am a serious offender here. Almost all my work here is in Assembler. I rarely use batch for compilations; almost all my compilations are done in my TSO session. My assemblies are done using a CLIST in a personal library. When I do assemblies in batch I don't bother with the "standard" catalog procedures, and I don't RYO procedures; I usually use just JCL.

You are a known quantity here; like me you are qualified enough to self support, which most of our users are not. I doubt the admins are going to bother with you.

jkzup wrote:When I went on TSO yesterday I saw a new message about available cataloged procedures for compiling PL/I and COBOL programs. The message ended with: "Use these procedures with appropriate overrides, do *NOT* copy them to your own libraries, and do *NOT* roll your own, as doing so is a valid reason to get yourself banned!".

I hope I am not coming across as sounding ignorant, but I am not sure what is meant by "do *NOT* roll your own". "ROLL"?

I have been using a simple JCL stream in my own JCL library to complie and link my PL/I programs for the over 4 years since I acquired my userid. Am I subject to being banned by continuing to use my own JCL? That would be quite extreme, given that my compile jobs have never caused any RACF issues or had any other negative impacts on the system.

As Steve already wrote, you don't have to worry, we "know" you, and you've never caused any problems, and even if you were to cause a RACF violation, you would at most be asked what you were doing. I've added you to the list of users who will no longer be bothered with the 42 screens of messages, I would just suggest that you occasionally have a look at the FAQ for any changes.

Hello Steve and Prino,

Thank you for explaining "roll your own". Although I've been doing PL/I since the mid 70s and TSO/ISPF almost as long, I don't recall ever hearing that expression. A nice tidbit to pick up!

Thank you both for your vote of confidence!

JK Zup