RE: Activation groups for beginners

[Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>You left out *CALLER, which will lead to
>people writing utility programs
>and/or service programs which can't be
>scoped in with the programs that
>call them.   *CALLER is very important.

Agreed.  I thought I'd start with the simplest case and add features as we
move along.  The scenario you describe is the environment I believe most
people use anyway, that's why a single named AG can be a good place to start
discussion and experimentation.

>I also don't think you should teach named
>activation groups -- although QILE isn't
>so bad, it's about the only one I'd ever use.
>Trying to make sure no two programmers pick
>the same name for their named activation
>groups -- and then trying to keep these
>unique when installing 3rd party
>applications -- is a mess.

Agreed again.  The feedback I get from the folks I work with is that they
are overwhelmed by the number of new things they need to assimilate.  I'm
trying to get to the barest, simplest case specifically to introduce the
vocabulary and concepts.

>Use *NEW & *CALLER.   When used
>correctly (which is easy to
>to) they yield the same performance
>as named groups.

Agreed again!  I want to walk people through the basic case, then show the
problems with that scenario and then add flexibility.  I had difficulty here
trying to get across what *NEW and *CALLER meant when mixing OPM and ILE.
I've had better luck withholding the special values until the new folks
"get" the idea of the named AG.  And for many people I've talked to, a
single named AG fits their production environment pretty well, if only
because they can't readily point to the programs that should be *NEW.  This
is really more than I wanted the beginners to get exposed to - I want to
reassure them that this stuff isn't hard.  But as has been pointed out
repeatedly, I have in fact left out the good stuff.  We'll get there!

I should have been much more clear that my first note wouldn't be my last...
I want new ILE programmers to write some code, compile it as AG('QILE') and
run it to see how it behaves.  It sounds silly perhaps, but the hardest part
of using AGs and ILE is actually getting around to doing it.  I hope to get
some folks motivated. :-)

Thanks all, for your patience!
  --buck


ps - My intent is to have as interactive a discussion as a mailing list
allows.  By having the same subject line those who aren't interested can
filter me out easily enough.