Re: [netrexx-pipelines] LOCATE Stage name abbreviation: No

[Chip D. <ch...@ar...>]

This is a philosophical issue, not a technical one.

The "LOCATE" stage has been problematic since XEDIT made that 
subcommand's shortest abbreviation absolutely nothing.  Many of my 
colleagues and all my students didn't know they were invoking the 
LOCATE subcommand at all.  While this made for fewer keystrokes on a 
slow terminal, it also could cause issues in XEDIT macros.  (Not to 
mention issues with overriding macros.)  It also has the side-effect 
of requiring the string delimiter to be the forward slash.  If one 
needs to search for a string containing a forward slash, you are 
required to use a single 'L' at least.

Fundamentally, such extreme abbreviations (anything less than three 
characters) fly face-first into the Cowlishaw maxim asserting the 
primacy of readability over keystrokes.  Yes, I've written Parse 
templates that accomplished Herculean feats of data extraction in one 
line, but never for public consumption except pedagogy ("Don't do this").

Simply because IBM has succumbed to pressure to allow such short stage 
abbreviations,  doesn't mean we shouldn't flag such usages with an 
"Inadvisable" warning at least.  Especially since the lowercase 'L' is 
virtually indistinguishable from the numeral '1' in many popular fonts.

Just my $2 ... (accounting for inflation since 1979).

-Chip-