System 390 Job Control Language

by Gary DeWard Brown

Book Overview

This authoritative guide to JCL has sold over 200,000 copies. The fourth edition has been revised and updated to reflect the recent changes in the language and its emerging applications, including mission-critical coverage of the two most talked about topics in the field, Year 2000 retrofitting of legacy systems and secure e-commerce. Reformatted to match the profiles of today's programmers, this edition places new emphasis on providing guidance for...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471283096
• ISBN13: 9780471283096
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

This book is the "bible" for all Mainframe programmers/analyst. I've had his original book....OS360 JCL decades ago and it taught me everything I needed to know about JCL. The new version is just as good....probably better!

The best book available on the subject of JCL

This book has the reputation of being the best book available on JCL. That reputation is deserved. JCL is a difficult topic to write about, but Mr. Brown writes clearly and sympathetically. Thanks, Mr. Brown.

A mainframe book that acknowledges PCs!

I was hired as a mainframe programmer (trainee) having never laid eyes on a mainframe terminal and having no experience or knowledge of mainframes. Most things have been relatively easy to learn, but JCL has been a thorn in my side from the beginning and has only gotten slightly better in the 7 months I've struggled with it. But this book is absolutely perfect for my needs because it teaches from the perspective of someone moving from a Windows environment to a mainframe environment and even draws comparisons between unfamiliar mainframe terminology and familiar PC terminology. This book is excellent and absolutely necessary if you are new to the mainframe environment and have to understand, troubleshoot, or write JCL.

The ONLY JCL book worth having.

Whether you are a beginner or if you've been programming for years, this is THE book. JCL is a very powerful tool and the information contained in this book is priceless for a programmer. After programming for 15 years, I thought I knew everything there was to know about JCL. This book is an invaluable reference tool that I use atleast 1-3 times a week. It is so popular where I work that others constantly borrow it. The examples contained in the book are very easy to understand. As you programmers know, when you are under the gun, you do not have time to read someone else's cryptic explanations, you want it spelled out and easy to understand. The utility section within this book covers TSO/ISPF and IBM utilities. The only part, small part of the book, that may even be considered week is the TSO/ISPF portion which I do not use. Throughout the book you will see a situation coded. Thereafter you will see "Essential, Rarely Used, Sometimes Used". If you are looking at old JCL you most likely will find your code sitting in "Rarely Used" and you can bring the JCL up to date by applying the "Essential" examples. One example of this is checking return codes after job steps. I've always coded the reverse IBM logic with a cond= statement. This book shows you how to code an IF statement in the jcl and check the exact return code with a simple .eq .gt. .lt boolean operator. Just things like this make the book very valuable to me. I've thrown out my old JCL books because this is the ONLY JCL reference I need.

Probably the clearest approach to a complex subject!

What a life saver. If you need to spin your own JCL, this book will answer your questions. Put the IBM manuals back on the self, this is all you need!