Re: Is RDi ready for prime time?

Aaron Bartell wrote:

Dave's case is special - his company won't let him have their customer

number. I really don't think that's the case in most shops, including
yours. My question was directed specifically at YOU, Aaron - why don't YOU
use the DCR process?

While I don't think Dave's case is anywhere near unique,

Not IBM's fault.

#1) Now that I am in a smaller shop I have so many stinkin numbers

Okay, again not IBM's fault.

#2) Knowing what else has already been requested in the community

Different issue. There probably should be some transparency in the project, but that doesn't stop you from entering yours today.

#3) Access to the site and automated follow-up.

Again, not stopping you from entering them.

#4) I know for a fact that IBM takes things said on this forum into
consideration even though it isn't technically a PMR/DCR they are required
to act on. I also know that many on the WDSC team are in tune with modern
communications methods (i.e. http://wdsc.wordpress.com/). Given those facts
it is easy to want to post declarations/requests/issues here and know they
are definitely heard. As it relates to WDSC-L, I am guessing IBM throws out
the bad and keeps the good as any organization/team with wisdom would do.

But it's not the formal process. IBM has said on more than one occasion that their participation on this list is a courtesy, and not the formal way to enter issues. I don't think that position has changed.

I know I mixed DCR's and PMR's together above which wasn't your original
question, but the lines blur on that with a tool like WDSC.

I tend to disagree here, but no matter. We're talking about reporting.

Most RPG shops would consider requesting new WDSC/RDi features frivolous, so
the easier IBM can make it the better.

I agree the easier the better, I'm just trying to get your reasoning as to why you don't use the process that exists while lobbying for a new one. As far as I have been able to gather, you basically don't like the existing process and it's easier to post here, so you don't use the correct channels. And that's your prerogative, certainly, but not using the existing channels is sort of like not voting because you don't like any of the candidates. It's your prerogative certainly, but it's unlikely to make a difference.

What's your approach to DCR's and PMR's?

I don't know, I guess I'm from a different school. Not a better school, just a different one. Remember, I grew up writing assembly language and debugging with an oscilloscope (literally - we had to debug timing issues on communications chips by checking the gating with an o-scope). Assemblers were the tools of the day, and we were lucky if we had something like a C compiler. Compilers often generated incorrect code, and when they did, you went in patched the code by hand. Our tools were rudimentary and when a tool didn't work, we used a different tool, or made one ourselves.

The tools today are light years ahead of those. I consider many of the problems in today's tools to be "luxury problems". When you had to edit, compile, link, burn to E-PROM, open the test machine, install the chip and reboot to test a change, today's development cycle isn't so bad. So I don't enter a lot of DCRs on existing stuff because "I used to walk five miles in the snow barefoot every morning uphill BOTH WAYS" and so I don't complain that much. Instead I try to be very active in the beta process for those tools I do rely on. And there you will see me bitching up a storm. So maybe that's my way of getting things done. And on rare occasions I submit a bug to the Eclipse group, so there's that.

I will admit that it seemed easier in the S/38 days. I remember calling in to Level 1 support and once they recognized my name, going straight through to level 2 and often to the developer who wrote the code I was working with. But again, that was a different time and we were talking about OS errors, not tool issues.

Joe