Seems you invented 'pair programming' as promoted in Extreme Programming and
other development methods that day. And also demonstrated that pair programming
actually works ! 😊
Fred!
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
Bill Johnson
Sent: maandag 23 augustus 2021 19:32
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [External] Programs that work right the first time.
No problem with AH digs however.
On Monday, August 23, 2021, 12:48:16 PM EDT, Pommier, Rex
<rpomm...@sfgmembers.com> wrote:
Bob,
No politics, no braggery. :-) I have written a total of 1 program that
compiled and ran clean first time. Early '80s, NCR mini computer and Cobol.
Hardware failures due to environmentals had caused us to lose the computer and
all our A/R transactions for the day. NCR hobbled enough of the machine back
together so we could start recovery late in the day. We had 2 master files but
no transactions. Running on caffeine and adrenaline, I wrote a compare
program as I was keying it to build the transaction list from the 2 (rather
convoluted) ISAM files with a coworker standing behind me catching my typo's
and offering suggestions as we were going. Got the program keyed and ran the
compile and it compiled clean first try. We looked at each other and said
there's gotta be something wrong with the logic because that doesn't happen.
It was late so we put together the run JCL (or whatever NCR called it) and
submitted it, knowing it would crank for a few hours and we went home to bed.
Came back in the next morning to see a good transaction file and everything
balanced. Neither one of us to this day knows how we managed that.
Rex
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Bob
Bridges
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2021 8:31 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: [External] Programs that work right the first time.
This part of the thread got me thinking. How often do you write a program that
works right the first time, with no compile or execution errors? I'm not
talking about two-liners, of course, or even ten-liners; let's say 30 or
thereabouts. Please specify the language, too, since it seems to me they vary
in error-prone-ness.
I've done it occasionally, but by "occasionally" I mean "less than one time in
twenty"; maybe much less, I'm not sure, and only once in my life when anyone
was watching. That was in PL/C; mostly nowadays I write in REXX and VBA.
In fact my REXXes typically start out with at least ten or fifteen lines of
boilerplate, and any VBA/Excel program likely relies on a raft of common
functions and/or objects that are part of my regular library, so when I say "30
lines", some of those lines don't really count.
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