RE: Pause technique

Are you saying that you never have failures?  If so, I'd sure like to
live on your planet <grin>.  

Some processes (particularly when dealing with imported data) have
potential weak spots and they need to be dealt with.  I'd sure rather
deal with the possibility of failure proactively than wait for an abend
and have to figure out what needs to be unwound to start over.

We have a critical nightly job with about 50 distinct steps, one of
which has about 15 sub-steps.  The fact that we've planned for
checkpoint restart capability doesn't imply to me that there is a design
flaw.  Rather, it implies that we've studied the issue and programmed
defensively to deal with real world conditions.  

I assume you do range checks on input data or chains to master files to
maintain data integrity?  By doing so, are you not also assuming that
failure (i.e. erroneous data input) is an expected and acceptable
occurrence?  Of course you are, and you're programming defensively to
catch and correct those failures.  I assume you use the MONMSG command
in CL programs?  Another example of defensive programing.

CWilt@xxxxxxxxxxxx 09/27/2006 10:12:22 AM >>>

<snip>
As a side note, I absolutely abhor this kind of processing.  It seems to
me that by processing this way, failure is an expected and acceptable
occurrence.  IMHO, that's an indicator of something seriously wrong with
the design and implementation of a system.
</snip>