Re: despair

On Sep 15, 10:39 am, AEF <spamsink2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Please tell me what error from the ALLOCATE command would screw things
up and how.

True, attempting to allocate an already-owned device results in a
warning. Clearly, instead of
$ ON ERROR THEN CONTINUE
the handler should state
$ ON WARNING THEN GOTO ABORT_THIS_JOB

What error from INIT would screw things up? My experience is that when
INIT fails, it's an F error.

Obviously, the message is
%SYSTEM-F-DEVMOUNT, device is already mounted
and, has been pointed out to you already, a severe error (-F-) will be
trapped by an ON ERROR handler.

Relax, dude! The world is not going to end because of this command
procedure.

I never said that. It's wrong, and your slacker attitude is exactly
why it's wrong. Who are you to _not_ do your best work? You clearly
have a decent grasp on this subject, yet you're trying to argue that
it makes a difference whether the tapes get changed daily. WHAT THE
HELL DOES THAT MATTER? It's a command procedure and should be written
as best you can, in anticipation of things going wrong, because things
*will* go wrong. I'm not talking about wild, extremely unlikely acts.
I'm talking about "someone left the wrong tape in" or "someone else is
using the drive and in fact allocated it" or "someone else is the
operator now and is using the tape drive in a different manner than
when this command procedure was coded". I'm upset that someone could
have written this correctly but didn't, because there's no excuse.

I'm not going to relax. I'm going to educate, if the culprit is
willing to learn, or rant, if he is not. I've seen too much sloth
and ignorance over the years to be complacent about it.

Maybe it was written by a BOFH!

Nah, the *** always knows exactly what he's doing.

Sorry, I disagree or missed your point (about BOFH).

Then you aren't very familiar with him. His competence is very high.

I find it interesting that you get all upset over this code snippet
yet you can't even tell me if the tape is changed daily! You appear to
know nothing at all about this environment except this code snippet.

I fail to see how that matters in regard to the quality of this code.
Nothing you can learn about the environment can justify that mistake.

How did you come across this code in the first place? What is your
role at this place that you have access to this code but still don't
know if the tape is ever changed?

Because I saw this in the logfile:

%SYSTEM-W-DEVALLOC, device already allocated to another user

followed by the inevitable

%SYSTEM-F-DEVMOUNT, device is already mounted

and immediately thereafter

%BACKUP-F-POSITERR, error positioning $1$MUA400:[000000]DAILY.BCK;
-SYSTEM-F-SERIOUSEXCP, serious exception detected by TMSCP
controller

I certainly hope you do not regard this as an acceptable outcome.
I certainly hope you agree that the INIT and BACKUP commands should
not have been executed at all.

At my current job no one but me loads tapes. No one but me uses DCL on
the system. The tape drives are in the data center which is locked.
Only people who need access to the room are allowed in. So a command
procedure that would be okay at my site would not be okay at others.

Well I think it's safe to say that my site is not as self-contained
as yours, because the "impossible" did in fact happen. Good luck to
you and your co-workers when it happens to you.

For example, you complained that the code didn't have a DEALLOCATE
command. Why is this a big problem? Could it not be, maybe, that no
one else ever uses this tape drive, in which case the lack of a
DEALLOCATE command is not a problem?

Because it's simple decent programming. You allocate a resource, you
deallocate it when you're done. You open a file, you close the file.
You reserve an event flag, you free the event flag. You release the
virtual memory you've grabbed when you're through with it. You don't
*rely* on the operating system to do it for you via LOGINOUT.EXE.
Why do I have to explain this to you?

Nothing personal, since I have no idea who you are, but I wouldn't
want you near any code I'm involved in, if you have such a slacker
attitude towards cleaning up. You either have good habits or you're
going to screw up . . . and from the number of posts I've seen from
you
arguing this point, I'm afraid it's the latter.

ok
dpm

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