The Ampersand (&) marks that the next word will be a symbolic. A symbolic will be replaced by actual values upon launching the VCL. By using symbolics, the jobs become
parameterizable
re-usable
goes around hard-coded data set names
more user can use the same job
The dot after a symbolic marks the end of the symbolic; double dots are used when concatenating with other qualifiers. E.g. &SYSUID..LOAD stands for <actual Z-userID>.LOAD, marking a data set.