RE: Record Lockup Problem...

[G Armour <garmour400m@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Booth Martin <Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Why waste time tacking on a popup window?  Just fix it right 
> and be done with it. 

Retrieving records from files opened for update using the "No-update"
operation extender goes a long way in solving record lock problems, and is
extremely simple to implement in existing programs.

As to never leaving a record locked for update on an interactive screen,
this can be a double-edged sword.  For one, it can be a major undertaking
to modify existing applications to "release" a record upon displaying it,
user makes changes, then getting it again from the file, comparing images,
it's not the same?, oh, time for user to make decision (that is, if the
user makes the decision at all.  Image changed?  Too bad, you're scr*wed;
here's the new data from the file, make changes again).  

Several years ago, I contracted in an environment that originally designed
for never leaving a record locked and ran into too many scenarios where
users were faced with "this record changed since you retrieved it". 
Sometimes users would just choose to overwrite the previous update without
understanding the implications, their managers finally tired of this and
told us they would rather deal with locked records.  Users were trained to
know that when they saw "Mode: Update" on their screens, that a record was
locked and that they could not leave it sitting there.  Otherwise, the
popup window showed the user ID and it was a quick holler across the room.
 For this environment, locking records for update was the best solution.

GA

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