RE: Re[2]:RE: Compiling into production libraries

Buck,

Buck Calabro (mcalabro@commsoft.net) wrote:

>Vernon,
>       In the interest of keeping the peace on the list, I'll just say that we
>try very hard to keep a minimum number of records in the test/development
>libraries.  The customer reminds us when we have too much of their DASD!

If I understand this right the development and test libraries are
typically on the customer's machine, and this is necessary because the
software is so highly customised that it's impractical for you to be
able to reproduce a given client's environment on your own machines, and
your programmers would normally work directly on the client's machine
either on site or by passthrough/TELNET.

If the test files have different format level identifiers from those in
production then your development process is seriously flawed. You first
need to be sure that the environments match up. Once you've done that
they should stay in step. Your development process should ensure this by
cycling every change through development, testing and production. I
would suggest the following 2 steps would help immensely.

1. Develop a tool or procedure to compare the environments and tell you
exactly where they don't match. I don't mean the data, but rather the
files themselves and their format levels.

2. Develop a process to bring them into line when they don't match. Be
careful not to hose carefully created test data, and watch out for soft
coding that may need to be different between production and testing.

I realise that this may not always be practical. For example, if you are
only meant to do half a day's work you can hardly afford to spend an
hour or more verifying the environments before you start. So if you must
compile into production, at least run a comparison between the test and
production programs before you delete them from the test library. Make
sure the compiled sizes are the same and make sure the DSPPGMREF outputs
match all the way down. Then at least you'll know that they wouldn't
have level checked if you had simply moved them into production.

HTH

Dave Kahn - TCO, Tengiz, Kazakstan
=========

e-mail:  kahn@tengizchevroil.com    (until September 30th)
         dkahn@cix.compulink.co.uk  (from  October 1st)
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