Feeling resourceful...NOT!!!!

My most hated word in the workplace is NOT f**k, w***er, tosser, b***h or even bad words like the ‘c’ word and I don’t mean Christianity, Catholic or Christmas.  All of these used in context (mainly in the pub after work or moaning about a colleague) are okay at varying levels. :-)

The word I hate the most right now in any workplace is ‘Resource’.

“We don’t have the resource?”

“I need to check my resources schedule.”

The reason I cringe at the usage of such a word is purely because I believe it undervalues the skill an individual brings to an organisation.  If your company describes you and your colleagues as a ‘resource’ then it is probably time to consider a move, career change or at least stand up and say "No!".

Not so long ago we had departments that looked after the staff of an organisation, they were called personnel departments and over the years Americanised/morphed into ‘Human Resources’ or HR.  This was the transition point from a meaningful team member with skills and aptitude to a reference number and a salary ceiling associated to him or her.

If the underlying semantics used in your company is ‘resource’ then you are seen and replaceable, able to be replenished, expendable.  Whilst this to some degree is true it does strongly undervalue how hard some people ‘resources’ are to replace.

I work in the IT industry as a software engineer principally and as well as the technical skills (platform, database and languages) required to write code, you also need to have relevant business knowledge for the domain problem involved.  Thinking you can hire someone off the street that will immediately be up to speed for a large system is foolish (at best) or expensive if you are lucky as these people often come at a premium.

Back to that resource word again.....

Looking at what a resource really is we know these as consumable items like coal, sugar, soy, oil, cocoa, wool, metals (like iron, tin and steel) etc.  Many (if not all) of these are traded on exchanges around the world.  This is a perfectly good use of the word 'resource'.

The last time I looked a lump of coal hasn’t coded a single C# function (some might argue that computer aren't far from completing this), a packet of sugar hasn’t written a parsing algorithm and I am not aware of any metals, precious or otherwise, that have written code to manipulate a physics engine for your endless runner game idea.  Outside of the IT industry I haven't seen soy beans provide suicide counselling or oil build a school.

Type ‘Thesaurus Resource’ into google and there are a host of positive (enabling) words that describe resource (the human kind).  Words like ‘Ability’, ‘Capability’, ’Talent’ really stand out.

Resource is a throwaway word bandied around by project managers (in my case) and normally talentless 6ft 5” middle managers (if my last company was anything to go by).  Whenever I hear it I cringe and I am trying to correct any company culture I come across to use more eloquent and most importantly inclusive terms.  I was in a meeting only recently where we are described as resources.  Not a good feeling I must say.

So..... 

I’m beating the drum wherever I work to eradicate this cancerous word and to have is replaced by ‘Capability, Capacity, Skills, Staffing or _____________’ whenever it is used in the context of a human.

Moan over.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

CA Plex and Unity3d - A visual comparison....

I feel like I've been here before.......

I love CA Plex together with 'what it does' and 'how it does it'.  In terms of developer productivity I believe it is only now being matched by modern day development tooling.  Yet CA Plex was born over 20 years ago.  I am also seeing an up-swell once again towards low-code or code generation so who knows what the future entails.

Personally, for me I have always been interested in developing games and I gradually move my focus in this direction.

I've been doing game development as a serious hobby/business and despite trying many different game engines (and I promise I've tried quite a few over the last 20 years) I have settled on Unity from Unity Technologies www.unity3d.com.  A few other engines I like for smaller projects and rapid prototyping of game ideas but it's Unity for me for implementation.

So to all those CA Plex developers out there who like me enjoy programming games, here are a few visual comparisons that might help to explain why I like the tools.

IDE

This layout looks quite familiar.

 

Coding

One language.

This is a slight lie as Plex uses a pseudo language known as Action Diagramming and Unity has C# or UnityScript (a derivative of Java), so two languages.  But the philosophy is the same i.e. master a language to solve lots of different programming problems regardless of target platform.

Building

Multiple different build targets from the same repository.

I feel that the common ground makes them and me, quite compatible.

 

And like Plex you can also play around with the icons for scripts, so now I have the best of both worlds for my projects.

If any other Plex or 2Er's out there also dabble in Unity, get in touch.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.

Under the covers of the SELRCD function type

Hi,

This blog touches on the design challenges when using select record (SELRCD) function type and makes some recommendations for best practices.  Disclaimer:  These are from personal experience and may not cover all scenarios.  I would be happy to hear of any ideas/improvements that can be made to this post.

SELRCDs can cause quite a few issues if you are not aware of the quirks of how Synon generates the code.

Let's cut straight to the problem domain at hand.  In my sample model you will see that I have two files declared.  You will see that "Lee's File" Refer to "Lee's Reference File" which will mean that if I have a PMTRCD or EDTFIL etc over Lee's file we will be able to prompt for the reference data.

The functions I have over the reference file are as follows, I have removed the default EDTFIL and renamed the database primitive functions inline with our internal development standards.

 The main file has numerous test functions so I have filtered on Edit file only.

The screens (Edit File and Select Records) in the blog post have been tidied (ever so slightly) to ensure that all the fields fit nicely on the screen.

I have generated up the code for the EDTFIL.

Reviewing the generated code.

By default you will see that Synon has generated code to call the SELRCD function upon prompting the field and Synon has chosen my SELRCD based on the reference file.

You will also notice that the parameters for the SELRCD have been defaulted to fields based on the RCD context of the calling program.  In this instance it was an EDTFIL.

This is pretty standard and works a treat.

Now we will add a few additional SELRCDs, you will see these below.  Note the naming of these was deliberate in order to ensure that they appeared after 'Select Lee's Reference Fi'.

In terms of impact analysis you will notice that the SELRCD is showing no usages although we have generated code above that proves the object is called.

This is due to implicit code generation that is automatically added if the field is a result of a foreign key constraint AND is input capable AND a select record exists on the reference file.  If you deleted the SELRCD at this stage and generated the code again the prompt and call logic will not be generated.  Give it a try!

 

Above is a screen image of the default Synon setup.  Notice the two subfile options at the bottom of the screen.  S allows you to select the SELRCD that should be used, T clears this value and leaves the generator to choose the default SELRCD.

After taking the S option and selecting my SELRCD from the reference file you will see that this is indicated above.  Because we have made an explicit reference to the SELRCD in the device design it will now appear as a usage within Synon.

You will see below that the generated code is as before which is great :-)

In order to help with the blog narrative, please now deselect the SELRCD by taking the subfile option T for default behaviour.   This will clear the reference to the dedicated SELRCD.

Now we will create another SELRCD (again deliberately named).  You will see that it sits above the current (default) select record for the EDTFIL.

If we generate the EDTFIL again we will see that the outcome is no longer the same. The generator now puts a call into the higher ordered SELRCD on the reference file.  We didn't intend for this to happen and a developer doing a regeneration could easily pick this up without knowing.  Quite dangerous....

In this instance, as the keys on the SELRCD are identical there is NOT too much to worry about.  However, in the real world 2nd and subsequent SELRCD functions will typically be over an alternate access path with a different key structure or may have additional parameters or specialist action diagram functionality which may not be the preferred default behaviour.

In order to demonstrate this let's add some fields to the model which we will then associate with a new SELRCD function.

Create yet another SELRCD function over the referenced file.  Note again I have named it deliberately so it appears at the top of a refreshed EDIT FUNCTIONS panel.

I have extended the parameters for this SELRCD to add our five new fields.

Let's generate up the EDTFIL once again and look at the generated code.

Ouch!!  Houston we have a problem.

You will see below that all of the new parameters have been defaulted to CON.  This is because the fields were not found in context for the relationship. i.e. in this case, not part of the RCD context. And because this is a warning message only it may go unnoticed.  Preferably Synon should mark these as errors and only allow the correct context ones to generate correctly i.e RCD example above.

Also we have now picked up yet another SELRCD.  One can conclude that anytime a new SELRCD is added and it appears higher up in the EDIT FUNCTION panel the next time a referencing function is generated it will generate code to call the new SELRCD and not the previous one.  Imagine a highly reference file and the chaos this could bring.

We can do somehing to help here.  Whilst we cannot get at the parameters at the point the implicit call to the SELRCD is made, we can put these fields in the context and populate them accordingly.

Add the fields to the 'Subfile Record' format RCD.  You will notice I set these to hidden.

Then in the action diagram you can set these values using a standard *MOVE built-in function.

Generate the function once more and the generated code now shows the moved and also defaults to the RCD context meaning that you no the parameters are populated with your values and NOT CON blank or Zero.

But I remind you at this stage that these were warnings in the code only.  How many people check the generated source for warnings.  I don't, do you?

Another way to do this is to switch off default processing and take control of the prompting yourself in the action diagram coding.  Back in the EDTFIL function again set the relation checking to 'USER'.

Note: This switches off all referential integrity checking so in the real world you'll also need to add action diagram code for the OPTIONAL/MANDATORY as well as foreign key constraints.  For the purposes of this blog I am only focused on the prompting and calling of the select record.

You can then monitor for prompting on your field and call ANY SELRCD function you think is appropriate.

With this method you get a nice parameter interface for the SELRCD and more importantly it is obvious to another developer that you are initialising the fields for an explicitly called SELRCD rather than an implicitly called on.  Some comments might be useful if you choose the other method.

This highlights the many options you have for calling a SELRCD and should help you decide what is best for your model, team etc.

Once last issue with SELRCDs.  I mentioned earlier that Synon (by default) will chose the highest SELRCD based on the referenced file.  Due to no usages showing it is possible that code will be generated to call an object that hasn't been created or has been removed by a developer thinking it is not used.  This will mean you'll get a 'resolve to object' call error which isn't a good look.

Best tip is to generate up a standard SELRCD for each reference file and implement it at the time the file is created.  If you decide that a file doesn't need prompting, then remove ALL SELRCDs from the file so this code doesn't get generate implicitly.  As you can see from above the code will get generated if the function exists regardless of whether the object exists or not.

Best Practices Summary

1. Come up with a naming convention for the default SELRCD so that it is first in the list on the EDIT FUNCTIONS panel.  We use '*SLT xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'.
2. Always ensure you generate up and implement ALL SELRCD functions.
3. Always keep the default SELRCD keys the same at the RTV access path.
4. Always name 2nd and subsequent SELRCD so they appear lower in the EDIT FUNCTIONS panel.
5. It is recommended you set explicitly the SELRCD you want to call either by the 'S' option or via action diagram coding.
6. Never delete any SELRCD objects without checking the generated source files or by exploring all file references.

Thanks for reading.
Lee.