Future Proof File Designs/Methods

[Neil Harvey]

Some MPE/iX Platform specific stuff follows....

Like John, we have written Qedit scripts (I guess it could be done in any
tool script) that create a compile "list" from the directory/group with the
Qdesign sources all ready to present to QDesign.

The scripts have the savvy to ignore certain ranges of files, or files that
end in "N", or "O" (both signals of work in progress), and, like John, we
generally blow away the compiled screens in their directory (Group), so that
those that fail to compile do so spectacularly and visibly.

Ensuring that the CDALL script runs successfully from time to time and
produces no errors is a good indication that the system is healthy from a
maintenance point of view, and aids us tremendously when migrating to new
versions of Powerhouse, or radically altering data structures etc.

We also try to avoid appending to subfiles, and we don't compile quiz or qtp
unless we really have to, since managing both of these odious tasks can
often take longer than actually performing major surgery on data structures
and recompiling all screens.

Some clients have over 500 quick screens, and this exercise takes only a few
minutes. If it is run as a batch job, we can examine the output listing for
the dreaded starry, starry night errors "*E*", and check out the screen
layouts.

I must say that compared to some of the nightmare maintenance stuff I've
seen recently at non Powerhouse sites, it's a great development environment,
and it's certainly made maintaining fairly complex systems as enjoyable as
it gets.

Long live Powerhouse!

Regards

Neil
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