Re: Software Vendors

I'd add a thought here.  You've all seen the protracted discussion on 
Scroll Bars for subfiles earlier, right?  I was very excited about them 
and their usefulness (still am that matter)  BUT: 

I tested, I played, I tried, I used every combination I could think of and 
worked through every possible error I could imagine and was very puffed up 
about the results.  I installed some examples and was still happy.

Then I went into another client's office and showed the scroll bar; major 
disaster.  Their IS Manager changes every user profile to reverse the roll 
keys and the scroll bar barfs badly in that circumstance.  A bug, surely, 
but whose?  Mine? 

Do each of you that claim perfect testing always test every possibility 
against every possible user profile choice?  If you don't then you'd have 
had the same bug, right? 

My only point is that perfection does not happen,in the green screen 
world.  Talking about validating for negative numbers is in the same 
category as setting error codes for CHAIN opcodes even though we "know" 
the record will always be found.  The reason we do  it is because we got 
burned once.  It isn't because we are perfect.

_______________________
Booth Martin
boothm@earth.goddard.edu
http://www.spy.net/~booth
_______________________




John P Carr <jpcarr@tredegar.com>
Sent by: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
12/01/1999 01:34 PM
Please respond to MIDRANGE-L

 
        To:     MIDRANGE-L <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: Software Vendors


Jim Langston said;

>It is not impossible to write bug free code.  It is actually very
>easy to do so, as long as when you are designing and coding the
>program you think of and validate any data the users can input.
>Too many times I have been looking at someone else's program
>and tell them, "well, if the user puts in a value less than zero the
>program will crash".  The response has almost always been, "Well
>they shouldn't put in values less than zero.  Let it crash".
>
>That has not been acceptable to me.  I will go ahead and add the
>extra one to 3 lines it takes to validate the values entered.  My
>feeling has always been if I allow the user to enter something, I
>darn better well be able to handle it in my program, or I am not
>going to let them enter it in the first place.

What is the reason for the difference in attitude between you and "The 
other
programmer"?

Coming from a Midrange Green Screen business app background I
"Inherently"  think like you do.   As I am creating the "Input" field I am 

thinking of it's validation and permissible values.    It's NOT an after
thought.

Also,  It would seem that if you come from a PC development background,
you may not think "Inherently"  about two or more people going for the 
same
resource at the same time.    This consideration was "Inbred"  in a
multi-user
environment like the 34,36,38  & AS/400.

Any thoughts?

John Carr




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