Re: Regarding retrieving source from modules

An anecdote to explain further.  Back in the PC world I was
writing a program in C to do some sorting on filenames in a
very custom routine.  It took me a while to convert a bubble
sort from basic to C, but I got it in, and was writing the program,
and was debugging it, and on the very last compile I typed the
wrong keys and deleted my source code.  Luckily I always put
my source code in a sub directory so when I shoot myself in the
foot I don't hit my client with the ricochet.  Luckily again, the
very last compile worked and was bug free.

Now, I always backed up my source code, but this was still in
development and wasn't' my machine, and I hadn't had time to
move it to floppy.  So, I had the EXE but no source, and no way
to retrieve it, but the program worked.

The story would be finished, except when the client called me back
in to make a modification to the program.  It seems that PCs back then
were very limited in the memory department (back in the 640k max
memory days) and so I had made the array I was using like 1000
records.  After ensuring that this was way more than enough.  So the
program was running out of array space and crashing.  But, no source.
Luckily I had the forethought of having the program accept a wild card
parameter.  Which normally it never used, and had never been used
until now.  But now, I could give it a wild card value of the items I
wanted to sort.  So I wrote a batch program that sorted on the 10 subsets
(these were numbers) and called the program 10 times.

So, this just goes to show:
1. Always make a backup of your source if it's something you don't' want to
   do over.
2. If you don't have a backup of your source, see #1.
3. Never ever trust your client to give you any accurate array bounds.
4. It's good to have the foresight of having your programs expandable when you
   design them.  Not as an afterthought.
5. After that I always triple checked before hitting enter when asked
   "Are you sure? (Y/N)"

Regards,

Jim Langston

Gary Guthrie wrote:

> <SNIP>
> The "need" to retrieve the source from objects arises primarily because
> the appropriate source is not available. The key phrase here is
> "appropriate source is not available". For some scenarios, a simple
> restore of the source might be the answer. However, in other scenarios,
> backup/recovery really has no bearing.

<SNIP>

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