RE: Running with LVLCHK *NO in production

I once worked in a shop that compiled all of their files with LVLCHK(*NO). Their rationale was that if they wanted to add a new field to the end of the record, they wouldn't have to recompile all of the programs that used that file! I still shudder.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Rich
Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 3:45 PM
To: midrange-l
Subject: Running with LVLCHK *NO in production

Hi everyone,

A customer just had a big emergency today. They ran a program that had
been run in many years and it completely ruined their part master file. I
investigated and found that the program had last been compiled in May 1998
and the part master file was last created in June 1998 with LVLCHK(*NO).
Of course, the file layout had clearly changed and when the program ran it
happily destroyed every record in the part master file.

My question is: is there any good reason to use a file in production with
LVLCHK(*NO)? If a level check had happened, this whole fiasco would have
been avoided. I didn't write the software (happily) and I can't think of
any reason why they would have built this file with LVLCHK(*NO).

James Rich

if you want to understand why that is, there are many good books on
the design of operating systems. please pass them along to redmond
when you're done reading them :)
- Paul Davis on ardour-dev