RE: Creating a service program

["Richard Jackson" <richardjackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In JDE code, date conversions, numeric conversions, and several other
routines are used everywhere - in every program.  If those routines were in
a service program and that service program was compiled to export all
procedures and a new routine was added to that program, at the time every
service program would have had a signature and that signature would have
changed with the new routine and JDE would been forced to reship every
program on the system.  We thought that it might have been too difficult to
statically determine intricate call stacks between about 2,000 mainline and
subprograms plus another thousand RPG subroutines presently in copy books.
If the machine helped, we were more comfortable.  So we fought for a way to
update a service program and ship just the changed service program and
effected modules.  Participating in these meetings gave me a great deal of
respect for the IBM people that make far-reaching architecture decisions all
the time.

Richard Jackson
mailto:richardjackson@richardjackson.net
http://www.richardjacksonltd.com
Voice: 1 (303) 808-8058
Fax:   1 (303) 663-4325

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com [mailto:owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com]On
Behalf Of Simon Coulter
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2000 3:52 AM
To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Creating a service program


P
Hello Richard,

You wrote:
>Were you in those meetings in 93 when we hammered on the ILE people about
>updating service programs?  They weren't going to let us update a service
>program at all - we would have been forced to recreate everything to bind
in
>a new signature.  I worked at JDE at the time.  If we had changed a service
>program, we would have had to reship the entire product.  That would have
>been several thousand programs.  It took weeks to convince them to build in
>"update service program" technology.

I don't think so.  While the ability to 'update a service program' by
shipping only the
changed modules was worth fighting for I don't think the lack of it would
have forced
you into shipping the entire application.  You WOULD need to rebuild the
service program
locally but you would only need to compile the changed modules **IF** you
kept the
previously compiled modules on the system.  For a sufficiently complex
service program
the creation time may be significant but you'd still only need to ship the
service
program.  Or did you mean something else?

And to all those considering EXPORT(*ALL) ... DON'T!  The arguments placed
by Brad,
Richard, et al, are correct.  Using the binder source is not at all onerous
once it is
created.  New procedure in service program?  New entry in binder source.
Just get the
habit.  It also gives the ability to define public and private interfaces
which is a
GOOD thing!

Regards,
Simon Coulter.

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