Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Expanding a field in a file or adding a new field to the file

[Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx>]

Recompiling isn't hard, especially if you've bought or built tools.

Although I've seen issues were a program originally compiled successfully a
few years ago fails to compile today. Most recent example, programs that
qualified a reference to a DS subfield when the DS didn't have the
QUALIFIED keyword...IBM tighten that up within the last few years.

The problem is testing.  Because I've also seen issues where a program used
to work fine, but after recompilation, it had a problem.
Usually (always?) because of a bug (usually memory corruption) in the
original program, that just didn't surface until the program was recompiled
and the internal structure changed with the new version of the compiler.

At my current employer, we started taking a page from the CI/CD
book...recompiling everything* nightly and deploying as a monthly* release
the entire set of recompiled objects after lots of automated testing.

The first time was painful, as outlined above plus we didn't have nearly as
much automated testing then.
Is our code better now, sure...but not sure it was worth it.

My personal preference is to limit the amount of testing of changed objects
I have to do...this originated during my time in a 1-man shop...and was
confirm during my stint with a Fortune 600 company that required
documentation and QA to test and approve all changes, even if the program
was "just" recompiled.

As far as explaining why the LF has a different layout than the PF...
It's a best practice to only touch the data you need to, safer and better
performing.

Charles







On Wed, Jul 31, 2019 at 2:52 PM Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I acknowledge that different options may work fine, but I prefer
> recompiling programs over the option of creating logical files that mask
> changes to physical files. Question always arises over time why logical
> file layouts are different from the physicals.
>
> We have a utility that scans source code in libraries that identify
> programs that need to be recompiled, and optionally rebuilds them.
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