On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:43:31 -0500 Rick Fochtman <[email protected]> wrote:
:>----------------------------------------<snip>------------------------------- :>I would hope that I would never do that, either. However, for code that :>uses an interface that has been unchanged for 45 years with a 100-byte :>limit, I'm not sure I'd be quite that hard on someone whose code copied :>the data into a 100-byte buffer using the supplied length. :>To turn it on its head: I wouldn't play you-bet-your-system with this. :>The code in most vendor products isn't as well vetted as your own :>internal code, and is a lot harder to examine. :>Guns have safeties for a reason; so should a change like this. Whether :>it's a new interface (PARMX) or an LE setting that must be explicitly :>enabled, there needs to be some informed consent. I can't imagine IBM :>being willing to even consider it otherwise -- else a (poorly written) :>program that's been happily running for decades could crater production, :>and nobody wants that. :>------------------------------------<unsnip>------------------------------------ :>Granted that guns have safeties (most of them, anyway). But if you have :>to worry about whether it's on or off, you're already doing something :>very wrong. :>There's no excuse for knowing what you're doing and PLANNING AHEAD. I've :>always coded my programs with the assumption that the parm field might :>be as long as 255 bytes, the max that can be described in a single byte. Is this tongue in cheek? The length has always been described as a halfword. -- Binyamin Dissen <[email protected]> http://www.dissensoftware.com Director, Dissen Software, Bar & Grill - Israel Should you use the mailblocks package and expect a response from me, you should preauthorize the dissensoftware.com domain. I very rarely bother responding to challenge/response systems, especially those from irresponsible companies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
