We did some integration with VSS to manage source control. It worked pretty
well, simple and effective.
CHECK.OUT {LIB} {PGM} {comments}
CHECK.IN {LIB} {PGM}
UNCHECK {LIB} {PGM} {comments}
VSS.STATUS {LIB} {PGM}
INSTALL {LIB} {PGM}
Only worked for source control because it read-locked the source, but it did
provide for up to two simultaneous check outs via three directory structures
development/stage/production.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Edward Brown
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 11:40 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [U2] ouch
Mark.
That's a very powerful condemnation of 'clunky' backup practices.
However, you've not gone far enough imo - simply keeping a copy of every
(significant?) version of a program isn't taking advantage of modern
solutions to the change control problem.
As a poster suggested earlier on today, making use of a version control
system such as the free and excellent Subversion allows you to keep hundreds
of backups of your source code but rather than being a backup of one
program, the whole project is snapshotted, each snapshot giving you all your
code at that specific point in time. The storage requirements for all of
this sounds horrendous but in fact is very modest, as files are stored on an
incremental basis.
Used properly, subversion can make administering AND developing software a
much less stressful task - the basic principle of doing a change on a branch
and then only merging it into the trunk when it's ready (and
tested!) means changes are isolated from the main body of code until they're
complete and changes can be identified, checked, undone etc all after the
event. No need to use comments all through your source code to show each
little change!
Developers on Windows machines have access to TortoiseSVN, also free - it's
an explorer shell module that allows subversion administration directly from
the windows explorer without having to resort to the command line.
Edward
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of MAJ Programming
Sent: 11 July 2008 16:42
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [U2] ouch
Louie:
Good Technique. I published a similar technique in Spectrum called DCOPY a
few years ago.
This replaces the pathetic methods that so many undisciplined programmers
use where they simply copy the program to the same BP file with a very
stupid .BAK or .OLD or other unmanaged suffix. Having the archive in the
same file causes FIND or SEARCH programs to constantly include them when not
useful.
Other similarily pathetic methods are to take the program and, instead of
changing the archive name, they change the runtime name to NAME.NEW or
NAME.NEW2 etc, etc. This is worse than the suffixed version as trying to
FIND the unchanged versions, say NAME, would falsely also find NAME.NEW.
This method is also poor as you now must visit all the places NAME is
referred from and change to NAME.NEW.
I've inherited dozens of systems with these poor techniques. It's very hard
and time consuming to systematically determine which programs are on-line
and which are the backups. One client had over 15 versions of the same
program with varying suffixes. The remaining on-line version was
PRINT.ORDERS.NEW3 despite there being a NEW4 and NEW5 version as well.
Finally, the backup versions should never be compiled. This prevents an
errant programmer from compiling everything. My DCOPY iuncludes a line of
text indicating why I made the archive. That line is stored on line 2 of the
program (line 1 stays as SUBROUTINE for other analysis) like a comment with
no asterisk. Thus, it would not compile at all.
My 2 cents,
Mark Johnson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Louie Bergsagel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: [U2] ouch
> A former co-worker of mine had a nifty paragraph he wrote which would
edit,
> compile, catalog and run a program in one fell swoop.
>
> Because I detest wasting time with repetitive tasks, I've written a
similar
> program which also copies the current version of a program to a backup
file
> in case I trash it, or want to revert to a previous version.
>
> EDBP [program.name] does the following:
> 1. Copies [program.name] to a backup directory (e.g. LOUIEB.BP) with a
name
> of program.name:"_":date():"_":time():"_".bak"
> 2. Executes ED LOUIEB.BP program.name
> 3. Executes BASIC and CATALOG commands unless I say no to a prompt. 4.
> Executes the cataloged command unless I say no to a prompt.
>
> This is the poor dude's version control program.
>
> -- Louie In Seattle
> -------
> u2-users mailing list
> [email protected]
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