RE: Procedure names vs. production support -- RPG400-L

Good points.  And when something goes wrong it is always blamed on the new 
technology and not on implementation, etc.

This morning I had a USER managed journal receiver fill and it "hit the 
fan".  A simple change to SYSTEM managed, regen of the receiver and a R to 
the jobs in MSGW fixed it.  Now I am sure someone here will have a bad 
taste for journalling.  But I bet they'd never swear off the use of 
DB2/400 because they had a file full message.

By the way, we had Jon come on site, twice, and do training.  He's good.

Rob Berendt
-- 
Group Dekko Services, LLC
Dept 01.073
PO Box 2000
Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





"Lim Hock-Chai" <Lim.Hock-Chai@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent by: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
02/18/2005 10:01 AM
Please respond to
RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


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"RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries" <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Subject
RE: Procedure names vs. production support






We ran into the same situation here.

My experience tells me that nor matter what YOU said or what kind of tool 
YOU present to help identify the service program, it is not going to be 
good enough.  Because that basic argument that you are facing is this 
"when a program blew up in the middle of the night, I don't want the 
on-call programmer to have to go thru all kind of hoops to research the 
problem".

Notice I said what YOU say or do is not good enough.  From experience, 
this is what I'll do:
1) Send in a formal request to management team for what you try to 
achieve.  Be sure to attach a few articles that written by well known 
experts that describe the advantages of using service program.  (This 
seems to be the best way to get management team to accept that service 
program is  good.  After all, who dares to argue with the expert.) 

2) If management team agreed that service program is good.  The next 
obstacle is probably the question about other programmers might not be 
able to support it.  In that case, request to have an expert on site to 
train other programmers on service program and other new programming 
techniques.  (We have Jon Paris and Susan done the training on site for 
us.  They were great. :)).

3) Buy a bottle of aspirin and take some when necessary.


Now, only if we can get Scott to present an article about the service 
program naming convention in the NEWS/400, ...


Good luck. 
 


-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces+lim.hock-chai=arch.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces+lim.hock-chai=arch.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf
Of Rick.Chevalier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 10:31 AM
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Procedure names vs. production support



I'm trying to advance development in our shop to using procedures for 
specific business logic and combining them into service programs.  The 
issue I'm coming up against involves how to name the procedures.  If an 
error occurs in a production run the message will identify the procedure 
receiving the error, which may or may not be the name of the source 
member, causing confusion and delaying problem resolution.  I have listed 
the options I have come up with so far.

Option 1 is to give the procedures descriptive names so that developers 
can more easily identify what the procedure does.  For example, WrtPmtRec 
if the procedure writes a payment record.  This is the option I'm trying 
to sell but I'm having trouble coming up with a documentation method that 
would solve the production support issue.

Option 2 is to name the procedure the same as the actual source member 
(currently 1 procedure = 1 module = 1 source member) so that the person on 
call can more easily identify the source member of the procedure in error. 
 For example, the WrtPmtRec procedure would become SP4351M.  This is the 
counter proposal I have received.  It solves the production support issue 
but I think it will make development harder as the names have become 
cryptic.

Option 3 is to use descriptive names for both the procedure and the source 
member.  I like this one but over time I think we would run into naming 
conflicts with similar procedures.

I'd like to hear opinions on these options and how others on the list have 
resolved this situation in their environment.

TIA,

Rick


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