Conference 2009 - Day 3 - Final Day

06/0202010.  Just revisited these posts.  Tidied up a few typo's and added addition links of images.

Well, where do I start.

I guess I can start at the end. Its all finished. Developer roundtable and closing credits done, final night out for those remaining done, business cards exchanged and now looking forward to 2011 conference. Early favourite (amongst us gossiping) is Chicago in around 18 months. Only time will tell.

At this stage I should though say a great big thank you to Jill Fender from ADC who saved my day today, quite literally. Here's the story.

My session was at 11am and like all speakers I got there 30 minutes early to set up. You know, plug in the laptop, check the projector and open the powerpoint.

OPEN THE POWERPOINT!!!!!.

HEART RATE INCREASES.

Now with 15 minutes to go (long bootstrap on my laptop) I find out that I left my presentation on my work PC desktop. Remember that internet I referred too on the first day and that I couldn't connect to work. Yes..... And guess what? it was early the hours of the morning back home so a phone call and quick email to my online email account wouldn't suffice.

A rushed around to find Bill, but he had left. Fortunately, I then bumped into Jill. She managed to ring Bill who was at the airport. As I understand it he then found some internet access and emailed it to Jill (who could connect properly).

I was two minutes into my presentation by this time. I had a old copy of a similiar presentation at Cincinatti. I had performed some tweaks (in that 15 minutes I had spare) and had apologised to my audience. (Thanks for all those that attended by the way. I was very pleased with the numbers and I hope that you got something out of it.).   Anyhow.  Two minutes and the door opens and it was Jill with the primed laptop. I connected it to the projector and then I was able to talk through my 2009 (updated with loads of new content) slides. I understand that these will all be made available online at some stage. However, I have also decided to type up the notes for each slide and will post on this blog.

06/02/2010 - I will do this in the coming weeks.

So, session delivery complete it was time for me to enjoy some additional sessions and attend a couple of demo's. Gavin (my mate from SA) regarding his security and validation pattern and with Soren and Anders discussing in some detail the TransacXML product. Very very very useful. Check them out on http://www.websydian.com/ and Gavin http://www.arad.co.za/

A final note on the conference. The sessions were great, the food was great, the company and friendship was great. Also that iPhone stuff I mentioned can be found at http://tinyurl.com/2eplex2009. If you want to just see the application in a normal phone or online then you can go to http://conf.desynit.com/

Once all was concluded a few of us went to Hooters (you can google this, but I would suggest you google for Hooters Restaurant) for a meal and quite a few beers. After all, it was Friday night.

That's just about wrapped up the 2009 conference. Hope to see you in 2011.

UPDATE - 28/09/2009 - Just found the presentation. It was on the laptop all the time. I had downloaded it using the download manager and I have just spotted it in there. I won't be making that mistake again!!!!!!

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

Conference 2009 - Day 2

Wow. What a day.

Attended quite a few motivational sessions today. When I say motivational. I don't mean some corny bible basher preaching good values and encouraging us all to give up tobacco, beer and girls (I could never give up 2 and 3), but the emergence of self-motivation by seeing what others are doing out there in the plex/2e world.

The first session I attended was the Plex update by Daniel Leigh. Although terms like "no commitment can be made on delivery or a date", one certainly left the room with a feeling that the .NET client in 6.5 is happening. Tomorrow we will be seeing this in action (I hope). I saw the icon on a laptop at one of the presentations.

Other than that Plex is BAU with planning being tidied up for the 6.5 release.

It was also nice to see what others had been doing. Chris Smith (albeit nervous) and please dont worry about that mate as what you have done in the plex java world with the 'plug in' looked fantastic. I salute your efforts and would like to get involved. Even if it is only from a ideas and scope perspective.

A few others around the performance products from CA which could have a place at my work and a excellent implementation and demonstration of a codejock toolbar control being integrated into the Plex patterns. Thanks Asgeri and Gunnar (http://www.vigor.is/) for sharing that. Nice to meet you guys.

I skipped the IBM session as I was lucky to have Alison Butterill visit Auckland where I live a few weeks ago.  So I actually caught up on some of that sleep deprivation that had been occurring recently.

Lastly, I looked at the TransacXML product. Soren and Anne-marie did a great job explaining the concepts of SOA. The products new import feature in the latest release (August 2009) looks like it can save a huge amount of time for the Plex developers at the modelling stage as well as increase accuracy. It's just another piece in the puzzle that keeps this tool viable and a serious option for any 2e shops wanting to target other platforms.

Time for dinner and then Plex in the City. Which is basically dinner and then a visit to a few bars. Starts in two minutes so better go.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

Conference 2009 - Day 1

Day one kicked off today for the 2009 Plex/2e Developers conference and what a day it was.

I say day one. I have been here for a few days trying to acclimatise and attending a business partner seminar for the Websydian product range. All in all a great couple of days so far. I have meet up with a few old friends and made new ones. I have even managed to find time to share a few stories and pints whilst scouting out a laundromat with a very tall South African fellow named Gavin (Arad software http://www.arad.co.za/). My mate Martin from NZ also came along for the journey. I used to work with one of Gavin's old school mates from SA and we have now become friends. Talk about 6 degrees of seperation etc.

There are a few words or sentences that helps describe these early days so far.

• Extreme jetlag.
• Excellent training session today on web service connectors for multiple languages and platforms using the CA Plex tool.
• Keynote presentations.
• Crap internet. The internet is so slow I am using a connection (not my wifi) which is making it impossible for me to check my business emails at work. Will try other options tomorrow.

A big thank you to the Websydian team for putting on a great dinner tonight. As usual Bill kicked off the conference in his casual style. He's done so many now I guess he can do this with his eyes shut. There was a big shout out to the participants. 19 different countries were represented and well over 100 delegates to boot.

The usual thank yous to the event co-sponsors. See http://www.plex2e.com/ for more information about them and the event time table.

Anyhow, back to the action.

Then came a couple of keynotes from John Leadbetter (Websydian) and Simon Williams, the later being the founder of the tools we all love to use. He presented an accurate history of the tools and some of the early drivers and it all made sense. Of course, there was a plug for the AMD (Associative Model of Data) at the end but I guess he's earn't that. Considering I have made a career out of the tools he invented. I guess thats okay.

Personally though, I am gutted that Gunter and the team from All About Gmbh didn't make the event. I hope to pop over and see you guys in December 2009 if you would put up with me for a day? Still there are lots of very interesting sessions planned and I hope to come back to NZ with a much greater knowledge about the direction of the tools that I love.

There is lots of talk about an announcement around a .NET WPF client generator for version 6.5. This would certainly give the tools a great advantage over their rivals with the ability to hit both the Java and Microsoft technology stacks from a signle design model.

And I must mention the Desynit guys who have developed an iPhone 'conference' application that allows delegates to rate the sessions that people attend. Anyone can take a look online or via their iPhone, Blackberry, Web phone etc and track these. I'll post more on this in the future. Who would have thought that this would have been achieved using Plex and WCF web services. More on this and other interesting news as I hear more.

For now a couple of beers in the bar and hopefully some sleep tonight. After 3 hours last night and that was a good night (jetlag) I'd be greatful for that alarm clock to go off and it actually do it's job rather than interupting me watching Lissette Gonzales. A rather hot weather girl on one of the news channels here.

See what I mean!

Tomorrow there is a string of sessions planned and a couple of meetings with product owners. I am particularly keen on the Websydian TransacXML patterns and see some excellent business benefit using these. Not to mention that Soren (the guy who knows all about the product) enjoys a pint two. Looks like we might pop out to Waxy O'Connors for lunch. :-)

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

TLA to FLA and beyond

This week I discovered a few new TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms). These are ACL, PCL and MCL. Unfortunately I also discovered that when used with terms like ‘ruptured’ and ‘torn’ it is not a good prognosis for a knee. Still I’ll get over it, get fixed up, get fit and once again start to play my beloved football (soccer to some of you).

You might recall that I wrote a blog some time ago about airport codes and the potential to eventually run out of codes. See link below.

http://leedare-plex2e.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-millenium-bug.html

Today. I am amused. Very amused. This must be the analytical in me.

Consider this.

We were all familiar with BBC, ITV, CNN, MGM, WWE or WWF. The techoids among us are familiar with terms like XLS, DOC, PPT for our office documents or RAM, DVD or CDR as components of our PC or media centers.

Has anyone else noticed that there appears to be a trend to using FLA’s (Four Letter Acronyms) these days. Have we ran out of these or is the world moving into IT mode and creating a naming standard 2.0.

Many of you have heard of terms like HDMI, HTML, XSLT, PCML and J2EE. Some may have heard of SaaS and HaaS. A few may have been using WDSc. What is it with the little letters? Are we witnessing the birth of the second naming standard. Our kids are certainly into these with text language LMAO, PMSL and WUU2. You can look these up yourself.

With this in mind we should be covered for FLA’s for quite some time. If we exclude numbers we have 26x26x26x26 combinations available. A staggering 456976 configurations from which to choose from. That should keep us going for a while but with patenting and copyright on the increase these might run out sooner than we think.

Then we will be heading towards Five Letter Acronyms. Or FLA’s.

“Hmmmm. Isn’t that TLA for FLA already taken?” I hear you say. We might have to skip to SLA or (Six Letter Acronyms) or is that Service Level Agreements.

Interesting times ahead I guess. I am quite fond of the Five letter Acronyms though, especially BURMA :-)

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

CA Plex/2E Conference 2009

Only about 5 more weeks to go!!!!

I am really looking forward to this event and meeting up with friends new and old in the community. For more details visit:-

http://www.plex2e.com/

I will be presenting a session on your 2E modernisation options.

The brief is below.

I look forward to meeting you in sunny Florida.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.


This session will provide ideas about legacy modernisation paths for CA 2E, incorporating open discussion and highlignting some experiences along the way, with particular focus on:-

• What is application modernisation?
• What are the prerequisites (if any)?
• What are my options?...with a comparison of the pros and cons of numerous approaches.
• What are the technical hurdles that development shops encounter, and continue to face with regards to modernisation and any potential platform migration?

This presentation considers the impact that such a drive has on a company's structure, processes, internal systems, the development teams and their customers both internally and externally.

In summary, this is 'Modernisation Room: 101' for 2E shops.

How software and technology has affected my life - Part I

When I was a lad. Alright. 30 years ago I used to stay up late on a Saturday night so I could watch 'Match of the Day' As I remember it was on after 'Hammer House of Horror' I used to watch it in the TV room.

It was my footy/tv combo highlight of the week.

Some years later as my interest in football began to align itself (like most brits) to fanatical religious levels. I remember cycling over two miles to my grandad's house and play cribbage. We used to play for a few hours and in the background we have the text services on.

"Fifteen two, fiffteen four and a pair makes - GOOOAALLLLLLLLLLL - Yes, Oh, sorry and a pair makes 6." The Brazilian goal was of course my beloved Tottenham Hotspurs scoring a goal. I'd then sit there glued to the television for the next hour or so waiting patiently as page 303 as it was then on Ceefax refreshed itself. You could press hold and then hold again to cancel the hold and the page counter would rush around. I don't think it actually made a difference to the amount of time taken but at least you felt like it was doing something. A modern comparison would be progress bar on your internet browser status bar.

As I got a little older we started to get more regular live games on TV. We had the Big Match on a Sunday with Brian Moore. Years later along came Rupert Murdock and Sky and if you are a subscriber (which I am) then you have football and football news on tap.

All this time I have remained a staunched spurs supporter. I will watch all their games live. I will adjust work starting times for the day (remember I live on the other side of the world). I often stay up all night to watch my team. http://www.bbc.co.uk.sport/ is my default IE page.

Then along came the internet. I can now search for spurs' greatest goals and invariably someone has put up some illegal copyrighted material from their video/dvd/blueray collection recorded to an internet format via their new HD compatiable handheld camera.

I guess we truly are in the information age.

However, with all these positives there is always a negative. In my case it is fantasy football.

Firstly. I can never seperate real world footy from my fantasy teams. Therefore, every year I ignore the likes of Lampard and Gerrard for 3 Spurs players I hope will finally gel and do something for me. I am sure things will be no different this year.

The real change for me is not that I have more footy to watch, it is how I watch it and interact with it. I used to cheer on my team, berate the opposition and with a bit of luck not offend my neighbours in the process. Now I have to remember who is and isn't in my fantasy team, hope for certain players to score and if the score is the same as one of my sports predictions, pray for no more goals, even if my team is losing.

And we call technology progress.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

Deciphering People

During my time working in the software development industry I have met a large group of interesting professionals with varying personalities. I have blogged before that some of these relationships have been challenges. However, I guess that is just part of life’s rich tapestry otherwise known as human-kind……We are only talking about 6 or 7 out of hundreds and hundreds……

Another occasion I have blogged about management and team building principles. In particular I once wrote a post that was referring to the team leader or manager being whiter than white when it came to their decisions and actions.

Viewing a team member or a manager through a different perspective is a technique I have come to appreciate in recent years. After all, there is always another view point out there. Whether you agree with the other persons view or not is largely irrelevant, at least in the first instance. The skill is if you are able to see it from their perspective, you are in better position to assist them seeing your viewpoint. Which in theory, should lead to a better solution for your business, client/customer or yourself.

Instigating thinking of perspective in your life and encouraging those around you to think in a similar vein must be good for you, your team or your business that you represent. Far too many people get caught up in politics. I must admit that from time to time I used to get dragged into these kinds of debates.

Developing these skills is difficult and my previous role here in NZ certainly gave me a lot of opportunity to witness first hand a whole myriad of people who failed to see the other perspective and continued on their personally driven paths. Not realising that they were leaving a trail of chaos and dissention in the rank and file.

Considering that this was pointed out to the business on numerous occasions and not to mention by countless numbers within the organisation, it was rather disappointing to witness the situation continue to escalate month after month.

Other approaches to dealing with problems is to not change the perspective and understand other views but to change he scope of the problem. i.e. Describe the problem to yourself in a different way. Therefore, rather than sitting there wondering “Why aren’t my ideas being taken on board?” Ask the question in a different way. “Do the people I am talking to care about the business?”. If the answer is no, then you probably have your answer.

Now we have covered the two simple strategies for breaking down a problem in the workplace, business or home. Yes I did say home. How many of you have kids? How many of you have had to intervene into a piece of sibling rivalry? Firstly, you carefully listen to the views of all the kids involved before choosing who and how to sanction/punish/ground.

Why, why, why then do we see professionals in the workplace not follow these simple steps of listening to all the view points before making a judgement call. I am guessing, it could be preconceived ideas based on ignorance, arrogance, education, experience, naivety……….. This list goes on and on.

Analysing this a little further I feel there is a small element of fear for some. A large degree of politics and sheer greed. Not necessarily monetary greed. Power hungry greed, people who will often step on anyone they feel obstructs them from their personal mission without considering the merits or sentiment of the view holder. Very rarely do these individualistic and selfish approaches to managing a team or business align with the company strategy.

Yet time and time again this cancer of the modern workplace appears to raise it ugly head above the clouds and rain or should I say reign down a culture more aligned to the 15th century rather than the 21st. Thankfully I live in the 21st century and practice personal policies and ethics that try to understand before I react.

If you find yourself in this situation, what are your options? I guess this depends on the area of conflict, whether you feel that anything will change, your personal circumstances etc. This list is longer that the Chinese phone book in Howick.

Sedentary work, or office work as my physio described it to me the other week suffers this kind of politics more than most other areas. If there is a disagreement at a car parts yard or a cement layers business the actions are generally quite direct and quick. In the office world we appear to provide an environment where a punch up and a skinful or beer is not considered conducive to a harmonious working environment. And quite rightly so.

As a result of this mature approach we are actually creating a breeding ground for single minded, single problem definition and/or single perception people. It is like the air cooled/heated offices act as a giant Petri dish allowing this bacteria to blossom.

Considering the above, I have always wondered if this kind of person has a hidden agenda or some sort of underlying code of conduct that requires decrypting, a bit like the Da Vinci code I guess. Are they a freak wave in the corporate world? I have met very few people like this but the one that stands shall remain nameless in the blog at this stage.

Until such a time that I am ready to publish more on the subject I guess we have to make do with one final thought.

Not until you have been a victim do you really understand the ramifications of these actions. However, if you are prepared to stand up and challenge areas that you feel passionate about you’ll root out these personality types before too long. Once that objective is achieved, if you can’t win the argument, move on and find somewhere where you can influence and enjoy your work. I have met far too many people over the years who have spent years and years (quite literally) of their lives battling against these machines. Sometime you just need to know when to move on. I did.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

Calling all French 2e Users

Just a quick blog today.

CA, actually Daniel Leigh in particular, is looking for Beta testers for the new 8.5 version of 2e. This time for the french language version.

So all my colleagues in 'Les Bleus' country. You can contact daniel. Just let me know you are interested via the comments feature and I will pass on your details or you can contact him directly at:-

daniel.leigh at ca dot com.

Good luck. There are certainly plenty of great new features in this release to get your creative juices flowing.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

2e Development Standards - Screen Functions (Part III)

Today we shall take a quick look at the Display File function (DSPFIL).

This is a very commonly used function type in 2e and if my notes are correct there may be a thing or two of interest in this post. However, I guess that this depends on whether you are an ageing old developer like myself or one of the new kids on the block in Bangalore.

But back to the action. Like many other function types the DSPFIL can be used to display data and interact with it in multiple manners. i.e. It can act like an intelligent Select Record and also allow multiple selects. It can also be used to show the contents of an array.

Hold on I hear you say.

"It's a display file and arrays are not files......"

That's true but there are methods to complete this. Nudge me with some comments and I might write up a few examples of code to show you how to achieve this.

Also as the DSPFIL has the CTL (header region) it can be used to provide an interface with a tab look 'n' feel.

Anyhow. Major tip. Take a look at the function options for this function type. In particular, the function option called Re-Process Subfile. Set this on and off and take a look at the action diagram. There will be additional user points and logic added if this is set to Yes. This is just another example of the PODA principle that is taught when you attend training.

PODA stands for Parameters, Options, Design and Action Diagram. The philosphy behind this is simple. The more correct decisions you make at the preceding level i.e. Paramters first, then options (function options) etc the less coding (action diagramming) you will need to do.

2e is quite a neat tool. You should be judging your developers based on the least amount of code required rather than rewarding on a LOC principal (Lines of Code). I think it is fair to say that anyone can write a bad program.

Below are two sections that provide some insight into the function.

General Considerations

The default scan limit is 500. This may not be appropriate for large files. If necessary set the scan limit in USER:Initialise Program to a higher value or even to Maximum. Note: That the scan limit is a model value. If you require a higher number by default (across your model) then I recommend you change the model value YSCNLMT.

Best Practice

Any subfile control selector fields not used should be dropped rather than hidden. This is for performance reasons and avoids the problem of unintentionally deselecting subfile records. To do this simply place enter ‘-‘ against the field from within the EDIT SCREEN FORMAT DETAILS screen.

Multi-part ACP key fields acting as positioners will automatically become selectors if low order fields have data and high order fields are blank. Ensure that you understand the type of data likely to be used for the screen.

Check that the operators used by subfile selectors are appropriate for the function design. Ensure you want EQ, LE, GT or CT for example. Don't assume the default role of these fields.

If a positioner or selector field has mod 10/11 check digit then it may be appropriate to replace with a function field without the check digit. The user does have to enter a valid number to position within a list.

Tip

There is no standard feature to stop the function loading records into the subfile under programmer control. The program continues until subfile page full, scan limit reached or hits end of file. However, you may trick the function to thinking its hit end of file by using a RTVOBJ over the same ACP using a very high key value. This positions the file cursor at end of file.

USER:Process Command Keys has got nothing to do with command keys. Command key processing should normally be added to USER:Process Subfile Control.

Subfile select status field is automatically set to blanks if subfile record processing completes without error.

Gotchas

If F4=Prompt is used on any subfile control selector STS type field then there is no automatic subfile reload and CALC:Subfile Control Function Fields is not executed. User then has to press enter to invoke appropriate selection logic. Function works OK if '?' is used. There is no known workaround for this bug. I would suggest that this is not actually a bug and it is harsh to judge it that way. It is simply because the enter key was pressed for the ? and not the F4 prompt.

CALC:Subfile Record Function Fields is executed before USER:Initialise Subfile Record and therefore you may process a record subsequently deselected. i.e. PGM.*Record Selected.

If any RST input parameter key is also input on device design, and its a file to file relation, then that file validation is deferred until the main validation cycle rather than take place during the load cycle. Any automatic virtuals from the 'Owned by' file will be blank when function is loaded.

An input function field added to RCD format will not automatically check for required value. Even if you set the value to Allow Blank ‘ ‘. This is because the DSPFIL template isn’t designed to have input fields and doesn’t generate the validation routine regardless of how the flag is set or any check conditions. Need to add the code procedurally via the action diagram to force input.

An input function field added to CTL format will not automatically check for required Value. Need to add the check procedurally.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

Can you feel the momentum that is Ft Lauderdale

Hi all,

I'd like to start this off by writing that I have been on a desert island for the last two months on a meditation course for mid life crisis for balding IT men.

But that wouldn't be true...

or perhaps that I have been on a second honeymoon with my wife and was far too tired to blog :-). But that wouldn't be true........either.

I have however, been very busy at work and the soccer season has started here in NZ so I am playing the beautiful game once more, although i'd preferyou didn't ask how we are doing.

But, even these distractions aren't the reason for my lack of postings in the last 8 weeks.

The true reason is that I have moved my laptop to the study and my 6 year old daughter has discovered the magical world of computing and dominates the machine. I do wonder where she gets it from but I think a new computer is on my shopping list in the next month or two.

How many computers are required in a family home in this day and age? You tube and Britains got talent in particular seem to dominate most of the 15.4' laptop screens in this household.

Anyhow, today is a short post to say that I have a schedule for my weekly posts mapped out and will be adding some highly anticipated 2e tips and tricks over the coming weeks.

Back to this post though.....

The title (of course) is related to the upcoming CA Plex and CA 2E user conference in the USA in September. Take a look at this link www.plex2e.com for more details. I have booked flights, arranged time from work and reserved the hotel room. I have even told the trouble and strife (wife) before I booked this as well. 4 brownie points for me. Shame I am still in arrears on this front.

All I have to do now is to submit my brief for a presentation and............oh yeah!!!!....... get working on it.

This is the highlight of my working year when I get a chance to attend these events, learn great stuff about the products that I use and preach about, socialise with friends and colleagues in the industry both new and old and get to attend a Plex in the city event.

I look forward to meeting many of you over the week that I am there.

Until then take care. Only another 115 days to go. I'm counting them down already.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.