On 31/08/2018 3:05 AM, Jerry Callen wrote:
Of course it's possible to prevent simultaneous edits, at least to the extent
that you claim ISPF does. ISPF doesn't REALLY prevent simultaneous edits; it
relies on a convention, and you have to hope that everyone follows the
convention. That's the issue that started this thread. In Unix that's
traditionally been done with a lock directory playing the role of an ENQ, but
it can be done. It's just that -- no one does, because source control is a
better solution.
Everyone has to follow the convention, and on z/OS they largely do. Many
think that new z/OS applications should continue to follow the
convention, regardless of what people on other platforms do.
Source control is not a better solution, it is a solution to a slightly
different problem. When using source control you STILL need to make sure
that 2 people are not updating the same file at the same time - it is
just the window that is smaller.
No. It's trivial to save my copy of the file with another name, load the other
guy's changes, and merge them. Of course, that's because I use emacs. Your
mileage (with less capable editors) may vary.
Merging may or may not be simple. Most people on z/OS do not use emacs,
and the editor is not the big issue anyway - it is conflicting changes.
But Zowe is open source so I guess you are free to incorporate emacs as
an editor option if that helps.
Here's the dirty little secret: simultaneous edits of the exact same file (in
non-z/OS contexts) are uncommon. I'll go out on a limb and bet that even in
z/OS, simultaneous edits of even the exact same file are uncommon.
Uncommon happens surprisingly often. When I have worked at larger sites,
there might be 5-10 systems programmers with changes scheduled for a
weekend IPL. When the IPL was confirmed, typically there were multiple
people who needed to update the same members of SYS1.PARMLIB. We did
have manual processes to coordinate updates (typically they were all
funneled through a designated person) but without that offline manual
process it would be likely that there were multiple people trying to
update the same file at the same time.
Yes, source control would be useful. You have no idea how often I wished
for a source control merge function while I entered someone else's
changes in SYS1.PARMLIB. When I heard about git for z/OS my first
question was can it handle z/OS datasets like SYS1.PARMLIB, answer: no.
We are where we are - it is important that existing functions continue
to work as expected. So, please, make Zowe edit compatible with ISPF
edit serialization.
Do other platforms really use source control for everything? How many
unix systems have you encountered where /etc is under source control,
people have their own copies and merge changes into the real /etc? Any?
--
Andrew Rowley
Black Hill Software
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