RE: AW: End of the road for 7.1?

Brad,

Testing MAILTOOL worked ok on the test LPAR.
But one time a test email was accidently sent to 100,000 plus customers, oops.
You simply can't run the options.
Some processes need tweaking if you're going to test.

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bradley Stone
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2016 9:47 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: AW: End of the road for 7.1?

On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 8:33 AM, Rob Berendt <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>
But, I've always stated our software works on the latest OS level.
</snip>

There's a difference between 'stated' and tested.

Agreed. We always test on our machine or a virtual loaner if we don't have the new OS yet. We don't "state" it unless we've "tested" it.

The only problem we have run into was an API change for the spooled file number from 4 to 6 quite a few years ago.

Any time we've run into issues with the OS that aren't consistent we program around it (ie, MAILTOOL Plus to allow SSL/TLS and authentication for sent emails). We may do this for SSL soon. :)

Your list seems like a lot of worst case scenarios. I hope there aren't too many ISVs using those "tricks".

Brad
www.bvstools.com

There are lots of cases where things have broke because of a release
upgrade.
- API phobics who do CPYSPLF of printed outputs instead only to find
out IBM changed the format of the printed (included in the release of
every Memo To Users!).
- People who code APIs wrong and hardcode offsets instead of using the
values in the header of the API.
- Vendors who hard code a prerequisite check for 5761JV1 would no
longer work on 7.2 (IBM did this with earlier versions of Domino).
- Vendors who insist on a certain level of Java, but allow you to
specify a different Java yet still require the one version of Java still be there.
(Seen this).
- SQL behavior differences (does "select * into :MyExtDs" after you've
added a column to the table but not recompiled the program work this
release or not, for example).
- SQL new reserved words. (Why does select RID, ... from FRT now
require me to use select "RID", ... from FRT?
- New limit changes. Number of spool files per jobs requires more digits.

Now, if your RPG code is limited to something simple like (in pseudo
code!)

loop tag
x add 1 x
dsply x
x iflt 10
goto loop
endif
*inlr *on

And you do no APIs, CPYSPLF, chaining to files which now have columns
with new data types, IOW, if your code is stagnant and featureless, it
is quite possible you can just keep upgrading OS with oblivion.




Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600
Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com

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