Re: IBM pushing Java (array bounds checking as a moral issue)

[Scott Halliday <scott.halliday@xxxxxxxxx>]

I for one would rather live with that situation as compared to what most
of us often face. You can easily line up your commands and get on with
the job without the confusion and free for all disregard for shop
standards, you find in many shops. At least management at that shop has
recognized the value of shop standards and are doing their job of
ensuring they are adhered to. I generally go by the rule " any standard
is better than no standard at all".


Colin Williams wrote:
> 
> What about the other end of the spectrum, when a shops standards go too
> far, and management are spending more time worrying whether the
> programmers are adhering to the standards, and not letting get on with
> the job they really want to do. At a recent job, a CL program of mine
> was rejected because the CL commmands didn't line up nicely in the
> source?
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simon Coulter [mailto:shc@flybynight.com.au]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 1999 1:29 AM
> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject: RE: IBM pushing Java (array bounds checking as a moral issue)
> 
> Hello Joel,
> 
> Ooh! What do I do if I advocate compliance with the standards but the
> standards suck?  Between
> a rock and a hard place!  Or the Devil and the deep blue sea!
> 
> I don't have any argument with the emergency fix per se, just the fact
> that it was necessary in
> the first place.  Your wish to go back to sleep (and the title change to
> include moral issues)
> reminded me of a story from my misspent youth (in Bible class actually
> before I replaced blind
> faith with opaque logic):
> 
> WARNING, WARNING, HOMILE APPROACHING ....
> 
> "The Boy Who Could Sleep Through Thunderstorms"
> 
> A farmer was looking for some casual help and went into town where a
> group of teenagers was
> lounging against a fence.  He asked them if any of them wanted to earn
> some money.  Of course
> they said yes (what teenager isn't in need of some cash?).  He then
> asked them if they'd done
> any farm work and what did they think was their major asset.  Most of
> the boys had little
> experience and certainly couldn't answere the last question.  But one
> boy just said "I can
> sleep through thuderstorms".  The farmer thought that was a bit weird
> but none of the other
> boys seemed interested in actually working for the money so he took the
> boy back to the farm.
> 
> The boy seemed quite suited to farm work and the farmer had no
> complaints until one night a
> huge storm blew up.  The farmer woke up and went to rouse the boy to
> check the animals, and the
> barn, and the haystacks, etc, but the boy was fast asleep.  They farmer
> shook him and shouted
> at him but nothing would wake the boy.  In disgust the farmer swore he
> would sack him and went
> out into the storm by himself.
> 
> When he reached the barn he found all the doors tightly shut.  All the
> animals were safe
> inside.  The haystacks were covered with tarpaulins and tied down.
> Everthing was in its place
> (ship-shape and Bristol fashion for our colleagues in Blighty).
> 
> The farmer walked back to the house and remembered what the boy had
> said.  "I can sleep through
> thunderstorms".
> 
> And the moral is ......?
> 
> Regards,
> Simon Coulter.
> 
> «»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»
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> //--- forwarded letter
> -------------------------------------------------------
> > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8)
> > MIME-Version: 1.0
> > Date: Mon, 29 Mar 99 09:35:15 -0800
> > From: "Joel Fritz" <JFritz@sharperimage.com>
> > To: "'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'" <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
> > Reply-To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> > Subject: RE: IBM pushing Java (array bounds checking as a moral issue)
> 
> >
> > But what if shop standards are foursquare against writing programs
> > properly.<g>
> >
> > Seriously, at 2AM it's hard to worry whether someone who worked where
> you do
> > five years ago should have done bounds checking on an array.  You
> generally
> > want to do the simplest thing possible to make the broken production
> job run
> > properly and then try to fix it right the next day.  There are lots of
> ways
> > to handle array overflow when you're designing a program; it's just
> nice to
> > have something you can do in 10 minutes in a emergency and go back to
> sleep.
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Simon Coulter [mailto:shc@flybynight.com.au]
> > Sent: Saturday, March 27, 1999 11:45 PM
> > To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> > Subject: RE: IBM pushing Java
> >
> >
> >
> > Hello Joel,
> >
> > Gosh, I've been busy on this topic!
> >
> > You wrote:
> > >programs on an as needed basis.  It's really fun to handle an array
> > overflow
> > >suppor
> call at 2 AM by converting the program to RPGIV and expanding the
> > >array, cancelling the OPM version and then giving a retry to the CL
> message
> > >that follows.
> >
> > Of course if the program had been written properly it would be doing
> bounds
> > checking on the array index and
> > would have sent a message weeks ago informing you of the approaching
> end of
> > the array (assuming the element
> > usage has ben gradually increasing -- I just love those 9999 element
> arrays
> > -- we'll never fill that up!).
> >
> > Even if this was just one of those things and the array simply isn't
> large
> > enough ('cause too many of whatever
> > is stored were added today) it should be possible to handle the
> situation.
> > For instance, log the failed data
> > to a file, send someone a message, and process the log file later --
> > standard transaction update problem
> > handling.  Please note that this is meant for the general case.  One
> can
> > always think up specific scenarios
> > where programmatically handling the error is not worth the effort.
> >
> > A perfect case for dynamically allocating storage and using that for
> the
> > array.
> >
> > And that CL message indicates no (or very little) exception handling
> is
> > being performed and you really don't
> > want to know my opinion on that!! - even though the Cat, Dog, Rabbit,
> Impala
> > message is useful to restart the
> > program.
> >
> > I can see this append starting a whole war of words ...
> >
> > Regards,
> > Simon Coulter.
> >
> > «»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»
> > «» FlyByNight Software         AS/400 Technical Specialists       «»
> > «» Eclipse the competition - run your business on an IBM AS/400.  «»
> > «»                                                                «»
> > «» Phone: +61 3 9419 0175      Mobile: +61 0411 091 400           «»
> > «» Fax:   +61 3 9419 0175      mailto: shc@flybynight.com.au      «»
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